


Worldgating

by Araine



Category: Thor (Movies), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Jane Foster Is A Wizard AU, psychic wizard kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 24,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4552812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araine/pseuds/Araine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane Foster is not a stupid woman. She knows Errantry when it falls directly out of a temporally-spatially erratic high-energy worldgate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Errantry

Jane’s Manual presents as a thick black notebook, its pages overflowing with notes and scribbled calculations. If there are more pages than should logically be inside it, nobody really questions it, least of all Darcy the Intern. She feels a small pang about not telling Darcy about the wizardry. They’re fast becoming friends, and Jane likes being honest with her friends more often than not.

At least it keeps her research methods honest. She can’t just cheat and check her manual for atmospheric data, she has to actually document it. That will keep the review board at Culver satisfied, at least.

It does mean lugging around a lot more equipment, though. Darcy, overburdened with heavy equipment, huffs as she lifts it into the van. Jane pulls it into place and velcroes it down tight.

“After this summer, I am going to be so built,” Darcy says, shaking her head. “I thought interning would just be playing solitaire and making coffee occasionally, not doing backbreaking labor.”

Jane purses her lips, thinking. “Coffee’s a good idea,” she says. “We might be out there awhile. There’s mugs in—umm—“ She searches for where she last put them, comes up blank.

“They’re in the dishwasher, cause they looked kinda grody,” Darcy says. She salutes Jane casually. “One pot o’ joe coming right up, boss.” She turns on her heel and strolls into the lab’s little kitchenette.  

“Thank you!” Jane remembers to call to her intern. She really is grateful for Darcy, who does a lot more work than any intern probably should for no pay. Really, she’s grateful to have any applicants at all. She opens her manual/notebook to the back section, where it stores her notes for her, and runs down her list of equipment to make sure she has everything. It’s just a formality—she and Darcy ran down the list while loading the van—but she doesn’t want to be out in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert and realize she forgot a spectrometer.

The list checks out. Jane is about to close the book when her pinky catches the edge of a page, and she flips to it idly.

It’s the listings. Jane’s name is somewhere in the middle, sandwiched between FORRESTER, Zenia L, and FOX, David M.

> FOSTER, Jane C 
> 
> 1001 Main St
> 
> Puente Antiguo, NM 87540
> 
>  
> 
> _On active status:_
> 
> Assignment location:
> 
> Lamy, NM
> 
> 35.384168, -105.943655

 

“Shit,” Jane says, succinctly. Up until this morning the status had said: _On research assignment_. The manual tended to update itself randomly, changing sometimes second to second, adding a few pages here and there with useful information. Her status hadn’t changed in _months_ , not since she’d moved out here to start her research.

_Something_ was about to happen, and it was up to her to deal with it. She’d sworn an Oath, after all, to serve Life and all that went with it. She couldn’t refuse Errantry when it showed up in her backyard.

“Darcy!” she calls to the kitchen. “Do you know where I put the GPS monitor?”

\--

 

Dr. Erik Selvig wasn’t a wizard, but he knew about Jane’s wizardry. She’d told him sheepishly one day in his office, shortly before her father had succumbed to his cancer. “Erik,” she’d said, smoothing her hands over her skirt and talking like she had rehearsed the words. “I don’t like lying to my friends, even by omission, and you’re like a second dad to me, so there’s something you should know about me.”

At first he hadn’t believed her. The idea of _wizardry_ was too farfetched, let alone the idea of _Jane_ being a wizard. He’d known Jane since she was fourteen years old and already obsessed with astronomy. He’d helped her to set up her second telescope.

She offered to show him.

For as long as he lived, Erik would never forget the sight of the earth as a burning ball of blue-green-white fire just off the horizon of the moon. He’d been dreaming of that sight since he was seventeen years old and the first images from the Apollo 8 mission appeared. _Jane_ had brought that vista to him.

He believed in her research absolutely, and had flown down here to the middle-of-nowhere New Mexico to assist her only a few days after her call. He’d barely had time to stow his things in Jane’s trailer and say hello before she and her intern drove him out to the middle of the desert.

Three hours later and he is acutely feeling the fact that 1am in New Mexico was 3am in Virginia. The desert is uncomfortably cold at night, and his legs ache from sitting in a cramped van for hours. Darcy, Jane’s intern, is clearly getting bored. “Perhaps we should come back another night.”

“No,” Jane says, stubborn. “No—the last _seventeen_ occurrences have been predictable down to the second. I wouldn’t have asked you to fly out here if I wasn’t absolutely sure.” Her eyes flicker to Darcy, at the front of the truck. “Plus there’s—one other thing.”

Erik’s eyebrows rise. ‘One other thing’ means she’s on wizardly assignment. He can feel the hairs raise on his arm, an omen of what’s to come.

“Jane,” Darcy says from the front of the vehicle, and they both turn to look. “I think you wanna see this.”

Jane and Erik lever themselves up through the van’s open roof and look. The night sky has lit up with color, an aurora so bright that it blots out the Milky Way. Erik gapes, calculations running haphazard through his brain. “I thought you said it was a subtle aurora—“

“Go!” Jane shrieks.

Darcy puts the van in gear and guns it. Erik jolts back, nearly knocking his head on the edge of the van’s roof, and they are careening towards the storm. Storm clouds bloom out of empty night, quicker than Erik would have thought possible, spiraling like water down a drain and Jane is laughing in wild exhilaration. He’s not sure if the wind is from the storm or the frankly surprising speed of the van. The funnel cloud touches down, and they’re too close—too fast—to stop. Darcy swerves, and Jane fights her. Lightning strikes. They swerve and a man is standing in the center of the storm. Darcy and Jane both spin the wheel at the same time, and the van stops with a dreadful _thunk!_

The storm is gone as quick as it began. Erik can’t breathe for a moment in shock, and he’s not the only one. He can see the prone figure in the dust, and thinks it probably isn’t good that the man isn’t moving.

Erik, Darcy and Jane all startle into movement, scrambling out of the van with the urgency of three people who may or may not have just committed vehicular manslaughter. “I think that was legally your fault,” Darcy calls.

Jane admonishes her intern to get first aid and rolls the man onto his side. He’s broad and blond and unmoving, and for a moment Erik swears his heart stops.

“Do me a favor and don’t be dead,” Jane breathes Erik’s secret hope, and the man gasps and rolls over. Erik breathes a sigh of relief—he’s not dead, just stunned. The man’s eyes settle on Jane. She just stares.

\--

 

Jane Foster is not a stupid woman. She knows Errantry when it falls directly out of a temporally-spatially erratic high-energy worldgate.  Her eyes lock with the— _man’s._ (If he’s actually a man, her brain supplies, complete with a helpful list of all the humanoid aliens she’s ever encountered.) A jolt that feel like lightning runs up her fingers.

He lurches to his feet, quicker than she can get her wits about her. He staggers, almost drunkenly, shouting about a hammer in the Speech. It’s the base language of the universe—the language of wizardry, that all things understand on a base level. Even in that ancient tongue, his words make no sense.

“ _Dai’stiho_!” she calls back in the same language, the more-or-less standard greeting to any unknown being whilst on assignment, if a little less friendly than she would normally make it. “I am on Errantry, and I greet you.”

She doesn’t have time for Darcy’s confused stare. His blue eyes zero in on her. In her head, Jane says nine words of a ten-word shield spell, just in case. “You! You speak the Allspeech. What realm is this? Alfheim? Nornheim?”

“New Mexico?” Darcy says, and a little red dot lands right in the middle of their guest’s chest. Darcy's finger is poised on the trigger of something that looks plastic and dangerous

_Oh no_ , Jane thinks, and she just has enough time to throw the shield spell up over the tall man before the Taser goes off.


	2. First Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those "I shall update as inspiration strikes" type of deals, but also inspiration struck.

Jane is fourteen when she finds her manual. She’s laying in the dappled sunlight of her father’s office, going through the stack of astronomy textbooks she’s hauled onto the plush rug. Some of them are difficult to puzzle through, and she can’t quite wrap her head around the math, but she is nothing if not determined to learn.

One book is out of place. It shocks her hand when she brushes past it and Jane pulls it out of the stack. It has a fabric black cover and gold block lettering that reads:

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD.

Jane, curious and confused, opens the book to the first page and begins with the first paragraph: _Wizardry is one of the most ancient and misunderstood of arts—_

She reads, first with growing amusement and then growing wonderment, as the book details in plain academic language things like the Speech, and the thinning of worldwalls, and the Powers and Potentialities, and the ultimate purpose of wizardry, to slow down entropy and the death of the universe. She’s learned about entropy in her father’s textbooks. The universe is constantly losing energy as a consequence of its expansion, but she has never heard any talk of slowing it down.  There’s no way it’s real, but she hopes, desperately.

 _Arthur C Clarke,_ Jane tells herself. _Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic._

She stops short at the section about the Wizard’s Oath. It’s deathly serious, with warnings not to commit to wizardry without the determination to make it a lifelong pursuit. The energy invested is too great to throw away needlessly.

At fourteen, Jane Foster already knows that the stars are forever in her bones.

“In Life’s name and for Life’s sake…” 

The sunlight shivers and leans in to listen.

\--

“You’re a wizard. You’re an honest-to tits wizard and you _didn’t tell me.”_

“I’m sorry,” Jane murmurs to her distraught intern, and she puts the pot on for some more coffee. It’s been a long night and she can already tell it’s going to get longer. She’s been fending off Erik’s concerned looks and Darcy’s confused questions for the better part of half an hour and she has a belligerent Thor to deal with. ( _Thor._ He seriously calls himself _Thor._ She is not quite sure how to deal with that. _)_ Not that she can blame him for thinking he was being attacked. Darcy only has a Taser in her purse, not a gun like Jane feared, but it wasn’t the smoothest start to first contact.

He’s taking a shower right now to wash off the New Mexico grit but that’s only going to last for so long.

At least Erik has gone to bed like a sensible person.

“This is _way_ unfair. I’ve been waiting for my Hogwarts letter since I was like, thirteen.”

Jane winces. This is why she doesn’t like lying to her friends. “I was going to tell you,” she says. The platitude sounds flimsy, even to her. “It’s just—I’m sort of not supposed to tell people unless I really know them, and you’ve only been here a few months… Also, don’t Hogwarts letters come at age eleven?”

“I am eternally hopeful,” Darcy opines. “Anyway, so not the point. The point is you like, big time owe me.”

If Darcy is talking about trading favors, Jane thinks, then she’s probably mostly forgiven. She smiles, rueful. “What would you like?”

“Erik might have mentioned something about a trip to the moon…”

Jane nods. “Sure. Yes. I’ll take you to the moon.”

Darcy grins, and yawns. “Awesome. I’m going to bed. You have fun dealing with Mr. Alien Pectorals.”

\-- 

The coffee’s done and Thor (seriously, _Thor)_ walks out, sans shirt. Jane does her level best not to stare, even out of pure scientific curiosity. (Apparently he has the same abdominal muscles a human does.) Instead she searches for something to say.

“Umm, greetings,” she manages, then looks around the lab before settling on her cup. “Can I get you some coffee or anything?”

“That is the drink you have there?”

Jane nods. “I’ll get you some.” She searches about for a mug, because apparently she can know exactly where all her equipment is but have no clue as to the location of her dishes. The one that she does find has the Culver crest on the side. She’s not sure if it’s hers or Darcy’s. She hands it to Thor.

He’s found his shirt, at least—made from some kind of thick wool that feels like silk. He watches her with uncomfortably blue eyes.

“You are a wizard, then.”

Jane nods. “Yes, I—I am on Errantry and I greet you, I’m Jane, we already went over that already, um…” She’s very good at talking to stars and gating superstrings; this interpersonal stuff doesn’t come naturally to her. Also Darcy wasn’t kidding about the pectorals. Also there’s that thing about the _name—_

“Look, I just have to make sure. I read in the book that one of the Powers took the guise of Thor, and—you don’t feel much like a Power, but you never know for sure…”

Thor chuckles. “No,” he says. “I am of a Realm called Asgard—at the crown of the Great Tree called Yggdrasil. We among the Aesir are greater than you mortals, but we are not of the Tides that swim through the Universe.”

“Hey. Don’t count us mortals out just yet,” Jane grumbles into her coffee.

“I meant no offense.” Thor smiles with such sincerity she can tell that he really _didn’t_ mean to offend her.

“Well, good,” she says, primly. She takes a sip of her coffee—it scalds her tongue.

“I was unaware that such a Power even borrowed my name,” Thor muses. “Perhaps I should be flattered.”

“Okay, well, table that for later. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to help you out in some way. It wasn’t a coincidence that I was at the landing site of your high-energy gating…”

“We call it the Bïfrost.”

“Bïfrost, Einstein-Rosen Bridge, temporally-spatially erratic high-energy worldgate, whatever you call it it’s all the same phenomenon. Still not an accident that it spat you out on top of my van.” She looks him over, trying not to stare. “So. What is it that you need?”

“I should like to return to my home, to Asgard. I made a… rash decision, and in his anger my father sent me here. I believe that if I can speak to him, I can convince him that he was wrong to banish me here, make him see sense. Does that seem like something that is within your capabilities, Jane Foster?”

She wants to breathe a sigh of relief. No wonder she got sent this assignment. To her knowledge, she is the only worldgate specialist currently operating in New Mexico. For Errantry, it’s almost _too_ easy.

“Yes, I can do that. Although if I’m going to do a personal transport to Los Angeles and then rig up a long distance gating, I want to have at least a few hours of sleep first. Deal?”

Thor takes both her hands in his. They engulf hers, large and warm and strong. He brings her hands up and kisses them. “Deal. Thank you, Jane Foster.”

She drops her hands, flustered. Laughs, nervously. It's probably more of a giggle. “I, umm—you’re welcome?” Her heart is beating way too fast to be entirely normal. She wipes her palms on her shirt. “I hope you’re comfortable sleeping on the couch. I don’t really have anyplace else to put you.” 

“I will rest easy, knowing that I shall return to Asgard on the morrow.”

\--

The next morning Darcy wakes to find shards of glass in the trash can. She turns to Jane, toasting the second-to-last package of Pop Tarts, and scowls.

“Okay, seriously, what the hell happened to my Culver mug?”

Jane grimaces. “Sorry,” she says. “Cultural misunderstanding.”

Thor at least has the grace to look sheepish. 


	3. Transit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a lot longer than I would have liked, mostly because I changed the gate location halfway through. Enjoy!

Even at seven in the morning, the TSA line at LAX is entirely too long. Jane yawns, still not entirely awake, and joins the line of other yawning passengers headed to destinations far and wide. Quite far, in her case. She woke to find her manual updated with information about Asgard—including its location. She’s not nearly awake enough to contemplate the amount of energy needed to punch a hole in the cosmos over that distance, not without a dedicated gating complex to shoulder the power.

She’s barely awake enough to contemplate navigating airport security with Thor in tow.

With promise of return to Asgard, he’s been remarkably cooperative, but she still remembers his belligerence back in the New Mexico desert. It doesn’t exactly make her comfortable.

“So when you get to the front of the line, show them your boarding pass and ID,” Jane explains. “And then you put your stuff in the little bins so they can scan it. And your shoes, don’t forget to take off your shoes.”

“My shoes?” Thor asks, puzzled. “I do not see why they should need my footwear.”

Jane contemplates explaining the evolution of airport security to an alien prince, then decides that she would really rather do anything else. “It’s a security thing. Just—go with it.”

“I will trust you, Jane Foster,” Thor declares. “But if these guards stand between me and my return to Asgard, I will not hesitate to oppose them.”

He mentions battling airport security with such casual confidence that Jane almost thinks he could do it, thoughts full of horror stories about Homeland Security. “Okay, let’s—let’s save that for a last resort,” she says, and hopes fervently that Darcy’s fake-ID skills hold up under scrutiny.

“Why shield your transport behind such layers of security?” Thor asks. “Would it not be easier to house it elsewhere?”

“Security wasn’t always this heavy. This gate has been here for quite some time,” Jane explains, very briefly. “Airports, train stations—they’re liminal spaces, places where people, things, pass from one place to another.”

“It seems strange to me,” Thor muses. “Heimdall is all the security the Bïfrost needs. I apologize if I seem ignorant. I suppose that I am unused to the ways of your world.”

His gaze is earnest; blue eyes filled with a yearning for understanding that matches hers. She can’t catch her breath.

“You mentioned this Heimdall before,” she says, hoping he can’t see how flustered she is. “What is it, exactly?”

Thor chuckles. “Heimdall is a person, a warrior. He is our gatekeeper, guardian of the Bïfrost, and he sees all that happens in the Nine Realms, even the falling of the smallest drop of dew.”

And oh, Jane has about a million questions about how _that_ works. “Wait, so—he has some kind of quantum sight? Or is it more like a telescope? Does he experience time dilation based on distance? How does he process all of that incoming information?”

“You will have to ask him yourself, when we get to Asgard,” Thor says, and Jane remembers that she is going to visit an alien culture and she hasn’t prepared herself at all. She found her manual loaded with a whole new chapter of information, but between the late night and the early morning gating, hasn’t had a chance to do more than skim. Mentally, she kicks herself.

“What is Asgard like?” she asks.

And oh, the wistful way that Thor smiles is like a punch to her heart. His blue eyes seem very far away. “It is—beautiful and proud and very ancient,” he says, quiet. “My father has ruled over Asgard for three millennia, and his father before him for longer still. It is the jewel at the crown of the cosmos.” Thor smiles at her. “It is my home.”

Jane is caught between staggering shock at the casual mention of _three millennia_ and the overwhelming urge to hug Thor and make it all better. Her father is dead five years and still she sometimes feels that she’d do anything to see his face again. She settles for taking Thor’s hand. “We’ll get you back there,” she promises.

Thor raises her hand to his lips, kisses it. His beard bristles the back of her hand, his breath warm on her skin. She can feel herself blushing. “Thank you, Jane.”

She turns away. Laughs because she can’t catch her breath to say anything, and she can’t seem to keep herself from smiling. He’s literally a prince who just walked out of a tale, and she has to remember that he’s going home and she’s never going to see him again.

That hurts more than it probably should, after knowing him only around six hours.

Thor only smiles at her. “Now, Jane, show me how to best this security.”

They navigate security without trouble. Thor follows her lead without question or complaint. Jane uses a small don’t-notice-me spell—the one she affectionately calls the Jedi-mind-trick spell—and Thor’s fake ID passes muster. Thor makes Jane laugh again when he refers to his footwear as a sacrifice necessary for their quest.

They collect their things, and find a seat where they can put their shoes back on. Thor leans, warm and solid against her, and Jane feels like the rising sun is in her chest, suffusing her with daylight.

“There is one thing that I do not understand,” Thor says as he stands, and Jane raises an eyebrow. “At home in Asgard, the Bïfrost is given a place of honor. It is our connection to Yggdrasil, to the rest of the universe. I do not see why you do not do the same.”

“Magic doesn’t work the same here as it does on Asgard, or a lot of other places,” Jane explains. “We’re _sevarfrith_.” She uses the acronym in the Speech that means ‘a place where wizardry must be conducted undercover’. “It wasn’t so long ago that people could get hurt if someone even smelled magic. And now, if people can’t explain something, it has to be fake.”

Her lips twist. She can’t keep the bitterness out of her tone at the remembrance of the Culver board calling her theories ‘outlandish fairy stories’. She understands the arguments for secrecy, sometimes she just wants to scream from the rooftops—‘I’ve visited other planets and I can prove it!’

Thor seems contemplative. “That is too bad,” he says, with a shake of his head. “The people of your realm should surely see how clever you are.”

And really, that’s too much. “It’s unfair for you to be so good at giving compliments,” Jane says, though a smile tugs at her lips and it’s hard to tear her eyes away from him. Even in the bleak industrial-looking hallways of the airport, he seems to glow.

“It is only the truth,” Thor says. “You are clever and kind and beautiful, and I am lucky that you were here to meet me when I fell.”

Jane smiles, taps her bag where she’s got her manual. “Not lucky, I think,” she says. “Somebody wanted me to meet you.”

“So you feel the tide of fate in our meeting as well,” Thor says.

Jane shrugs. Why the Powers That Be wanted her to meet an alien prince from halfway across the universe, she’s got no idea. It’ll come clear in time, presumably. They have Their own way about things. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that there aren’t many coincidences,” she says. “Here we are.”

The Worldgate is located in the back of an airport bar, dimly lit and tucked away from the main concourse. A few stray travelers sit at lonely tables, accompanied by their luggage—reading, or sleeping, or checking their phones. A single employee works the bar, looking tired and bored, and she barely registers Jane and Thor coming in.

Jane stops at the back wall, pulls her manual from her bag. She’s got the chapter on worldgates thoroughly dog-eared and filled with notes and annotations, but at the back there’s a section on local gates. The Los Angeles gate is right at the top, dormant but normal.

Jane starts to speak the spell, coaxing the gate to wakefulness. “We need a stationary personal transport to a fixed point located 8.92376120…” Slowly, the worldgate appears as a shine in the air, like a large soap bubble being blown out of a tube, growing bigger by the moment. Jane can feel its unlimited potential, the roaring power concentrated in this one spot over so many years of use, the delicate superstring structure underlying everything. She continues in the Speech. “…transport for two beings—“ and speaks her name, ties herself into the spell. When she finishes, she starts in on Thor’s name.

His eyes are bright blue and for a moment the intensity of his gaze seems bright like lightning, and he joins her in the spelling of his name. His warm voice curls around the syllables of the Speech, making him as much a part of the spell as she is.

Jane smiles, joy bubbling up with each new syllable as she finds herself rushing to the end of the spell. And then she’s there and she ties it all with a verbal Wizard’s Knot. The Worldgate hovers there in the air, stable, a little off-color from the rest of the bar, a gateway to the wider universe. Jane is breathless with excitement.

She reaches out her hand for Thor. He wraps her hand in his, and she steps forward—

Into something painfully solid. She’s bounced back, repelled by something invisible. Jane rubs her injured nose, scowls at the uncooperative worldgate, and tries again – slower this time. She can feel the barrier against her skin, like a leftover bit of electrostatic charge, and she explores it. It’s as if someone has built a solid wall between her and a fully functioning worldgate, leaving no cracks.

“Somebody blocked off my worldgate!” Jane crosses her arms, indignant. “If swear if this is somebody’s idea of a joke—“

She doesn’t finish her threat, because Thor is looking miserable in a noble-suffering way. Tentatively, Jane touches his arm. “Thor?” she asks.

“It is no jest, I am afraid,” he says, shaking his head. “No, Jane, this is my fault. I believed that if I could return to Asgard, I could make my father see reason and end my banishment. But he is very shrewd, it seems. I am sorry you have brought me all this way for nothing.”

She squeezes his arm, although she can’t get her whole hand around his bicep. “There’s no harm in trying,” she says. “Usually, in my lab, when I’ve completely run out of options—that’s when some new brilliant idea happens.” She smiles, trying to bolster him back to his usual good mood. “It just means we keep looking for new options.”

“Thank you, Jane,” Thor says.

She smiles at him, then returns to the worldgate. Says the few words in the Speech to make it inactive again. The gate grumbles in the back of her mind, something that sounds like ‘ _well if you weren’t going to use me why bother’_. Jane rolls her eyes dismissively at it, turns back to Thor.

“So,” she says. “While we’re in LA—coffee?”

“I am quite famished,” Thor says. “Your ‘pop-tarts’ were delicious, but not nearly sustenance enough.”  

Jane smiles, glad to see Thor back to a good mood. “Breakfast I can do.”


	4. Complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short-ish but, um, I liked where it ended.

Jane and Thor reappear on the far side of Puente Antiguo from her lab, full of $5.99 all-you-can-eat pancakes. Considering how much Thor can put away, Jane is sure she’s got her money’s worth. By mutual agreement, they didn’t talk about Thor’s banishment or the off-limits worldgates. Instead, Jane found herself telling a story about missteps with blue food in the Crossings, which Thor matched with a tale of him and his brother getting into heaps of trouble involving goats in Vanaheim, which led into him telling her all about the Nine Realms

Jane is still grinning, sore from laughter and because she's sure Thor could make anyone smile after ten minutes in his cheerful company. The smile dissipates when she sees Darcy sprinting down Main St towards them, waving wildly and yelling at her.

“Darcy?” Jane asks her out of breath intern, confusion warring with dismay. What could have possibly happened in three hours?

“Jane,” Darcy pants. “Glad you’re here. Look, we’ve got a situation—“

Jane’s dismay only grows. After three months she trusts Darcy with her equipment – most of the time – but there’s always the possibility something has gone catastrophically wrong without her there to fix it. “What kind of a situation?” she demands.

“Well, these guys in like, suits and sunglasses showed up and said they needed your data. Said they were SHELL or something? I’ve never heard of them but they had badges, – scary badges!—and they looked like they were in a bit of an arresting mood.”

Jane’s already off down the street, fingers balling into fists. “They are _not_ taking my data,” she fumes. “Not if I have anything to say about it!”

Darcy has to jog to catch up with Jane, who has already cleared half a block—probably a good eighth of Main St total. “You are crazy fast for a short girl,” she says, then looks over her shoulder at Thor who is following behind, brow furrowed and eyes on Jane. “You think we should we bring tall blond and handsome with us? Cause when the M.I.B show up a day after we get an extraterrestrial visitor? _Kiiinda_ thinking that’s not a coincidence.”

That makes Jane stop. She turns, faces Thor, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth like she does when she’s thinking very hard about some decision. “She’s right,” she says. “They could be here for you. Maybe you should let us…”

“If your distress is caused by my presence then I shall not run away,” Thor cuts her off. “You have been a most gracious host, and I would do what I can to help.”

Jane breathes out the tension she’s been holding in her chest. She’s not sure this is the best idea, but she’s equally not sure that she could stop him—and it seems like his mind is made up. Her course is decided for her when a pickup truck filled with equipment— _her_ equipment—comes careening down the opposite side of the street.

“Hey!” Jane shouts, and she nearly crosses into traffic to go after the driver. Darcy grabs her arm at the last second, hauls Jane back. Jane scowls at Darcy—the traffic here rarely goes above 15mph and that’s when people are _rushing_ —but it’s not Darcy she’s actually angry with.

Jane takes a deep breath, feeling the oxygen fill her lungs, imagines it as fire and fury chemically binding to her cells. “Let’s go to the lab, while I still have some equipment left,” she says, and starts back down Main St.

Darcy doggedly keeps pace with Jane and Thor. “So, Jane, are you gonna use some—“ she wiggles her fingers to indicate wizardry “—you know. To get rid of them?”

“It does seem as if magic might improve the situation,” Thor says.

Jane shakes her head. “That would be unethical, probably,” she says. Even if she has the energy after the morning’s transports and the worldgate, it would probably be against Life to enact a psychotropic wizardry to confuse so many people. The Powers That Be might have a bit of wiggle room for government spooks stealing her research. “But I’m considering it.”

The lab is just as Darcy described it—crawling with men and women dressed in black suits and ties, wearing sunglasses and earpieces, loading her equipment into windowless and unmarked black vans. Her lab is stripped nearly as bare as the day she rented it. Erik is talking to a balding man in a striped tie who looks like he’s in charge of this little travesty.

Jane rushes their way. “Ah, here she is,” Erik says, smiling tightly at her. He gives a little shake of his head that she correctly interprets as ‘leave this one alone Jane’. He’s trying to look after her, like he’s done since her father passed. She decides that she doesn’t care right now.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demands of the bald man.

The bald man turns to her, holds up a very official-looking badge. “I’m Agent Coulson, with SHIELD. We’re investigating a security threat. We need to appropriate your records and atmospheric data.”

“By ‘appropriate’, do you mean steal?” she shrieks, her fury making her reckless. “Unless you have a warrant, which I highly doubt—“

Erik interrupts her with a hand on her shoulder. “Jane, please. Don’t antagonize them,” he says, voice low. “Just let it go for now.”

She wheels on Erik, and for a moment it’s hard to remember that he’s been like a second father to her for years. “Let it go? I can’t just let it go—this is my life’s work, and you _cannot_ just take it away!”

Agent Coulson appears bureaucratically unmoved by her pleas, and is about to say something else when Thor comes up behind her. Jane can feel him, like a solid wall at her back, holding her steady. When Jane looks up at him, there is something dangerous in his eye.

“Jane,” he says, quiet and reasonable, “you say that this man is stealing from you?”

Jane smiles, a vicious angry smile, because it feels really good to have her feelings affirmed right now, even if it is by a space alien prince. “Yes,” she says. “Yes he is.”

“Ah,” Thor says. He smiles a beatifically at Jane, and then turns the same smile on Agent Coulson. “Good.”

And that’s when Thor punches a government agent in the nose.

\--

“So,” Darcy says. “Your alien boyfriend is in custody.”

Jane purses her lips at Darcy. “Not my boyfriend, Darcy.”

“He just beat up like, forty federal agents for you. I think that makes him your boyfriend.”

Jane winces, tries not to think about the all-out brawl that just happened in the middle of her lab. It probably wasn’t forty agents, but Thor did fight quite a few. From the way it had looked, he could have gone on to brawl more if Coulson hadn’t fired a warning shot and Jane hadn’t screamed.

She also tries not to think about the look of complete trust on his face when they took him into their unmarked black van, the way he held her hand and said, “If you think I should go with them for now, than I shall, Jane.” She feels all quivery in her belly, hoping he hasn’t misplaced his trust in her.

Darcy is still speaking. “That probably should, legally, make him your boyfriend, in at least one country right? It’s like the law of action movies or something?” Jane honestly can’t follow the spurious logic of her argument, and doesn’t try. “Anyways, are we going to get him out of illegal detention or what?”

Jane nods. She is still on Errantry, and Thor is still her responsibility, and in any case she can’t let him down. Not after he beat up all those federal agents for her.

“Good. Are you finally gonna use some of your mojo?” She wiggles her fingers again, this time right in Jane's face.

“Yeah,” Jane says. “I think it’s time I used some wizardry.”

Darcy grins, a glint in her eye. “Sweet.” 


	5. Promises

His time in New Mexico has not, Agent Coulson reflects, been going well. Since leaving SHIELD headquarters, he has stopped a robbery in progress, broken up a really fun looking barbecue, set up a temporary research station in sweltering heat, confronted a very angry scientist, and gotten his nose almost definitely broken by a guy who calls himself Thor and claims to be an alien prince.

And now he’s staring down Nick Fury via video conference.

“I’m going to chalk that up to you getting knocked in the head Coulson, because I swear you just said you want to let the crazy guy who beat you up touch the mysterious hammer.”

Coulson nods, realizing how strange it all sounds. He’s not sure if Thor is telling the truth, but nothing about this whole situation has been normal, and he has a hunch. “To be fair, sir, he did say it belonged to him.”

“That does not make me feel better about this, Coulson.”

Coulson just smiles, although it does kind of hurt the bruising around his nose. Whoever this Thor guy is, he certainly can throw a punch. Lots of punches, actually. “Think of it as a novel interrogation technique,” he reasons. “He only started talking after he saw the hammer, and he hasn’t exactly been as forthcoming as we'd like.”

Fury shakes his head, rubs his temples. His one good eye looks unamused. “Alright, Coulson,” he says. “This is your operation. You want to let him touch the damn hammer, that’s your call.”

“Thank you, sir.”

\--

“You’re not coming,” Jane informs Darcy in what she hopes is her very best authoritative voice.

“Yes,” Darcy counters, arms crossed. “I am.”

“That’s really not the most compelling argument,” Jane says, and goes back to digging through the pages in her manual for anything helpful in breaking an alien prince out of a highly secured government facility. At least she knows where he’s being held. The whole town is abuzz about the ‘satellite crash’ west of town.

As Darcy so helpfully mentioned earlier—when the M.I.B shows up the same day as a satellite crash, it’s probably not a coincidence.

“Neither of you should be going,” Erik mutters, with a significant look at Jane. “There was an incident back at Culver, very hushed up, but I knew this scientist. A pioneer in gamma radiation. SHIELD showed up and—well—“ He leaves them to fill in the very ominous sounding blank.

Jane sighs. She knows that Erik is just trying to look after her—he’s been doing it for years. She ran into just this sort of trouble with her parents. “All the more reason why we need to get Thor back soon. I’m a wizard, I’m on Errantry, and he’s _my_ responsibility.”

“And I’m your intern,” Darcy cuts in. “I’m getting paid six credit hours to help you with your work—if this is your job, it’s mine too.”

Jane rolls her eyes. “Yeah, and what do I tell the Culver board if you get shot?”

“That I went above and beyond the line of duty and they should expiate my student loans and hospital bills?”

Jane shakes her head. “No.”

“Oh come on,” Darcy says. “You owe me, remember?”

“I promised to take you to the moon,” Jane reminds her intern, exasperated. She’s lost precious time already, and she wants an invisibility spell prepared just in case.

“Yes but this is much cooler,” Darcy says, as if this is the most reasonable thing in the world.

Jane raises her eyebrows. Between committing possible treason and going to the moon, she would much rather go to the moon. “I really don’t see how.”

“Besides, you need me,” Darcy argues. “You might be an all-powerful wizard—“

Jane snorts. The days when she had so much power at her disposal she could hardly find uses for it are long past. “I wish.”

“—but you’re kinda scatterbrained and you’re really, _really_ bad at lying. Plus they took my iPod, and I want it back.”

“If I see your iPod while I’m there, I’ll make sure to grab it,” Jane promises. There are actually quite a few things she is hoping to stumble across while she is there—they did take all of her equipment and data, including the readings from last night which she hasn’t even had a chance to delve into yet. Darcy's iPod is not her highest priority.

At least she still has her manual, although she doubts they could have taken it away for very long. Wizards who lose their manuals usually get them back in some form or another, courtesy of some stroke of luck, but it’s considered a bit of an amateur mistake to lose it.

“Okay,” Darcy says, as she lines up another plan of attack. “But think about it like this Jane…”

\--

On a personal level, Coulson has never liked Jasper Sitwell, but he’s also undeniably a good agent. Efficient, with precise reports and a clear sense of the chain of command. The little bit of apprehension at leaving him in control of the workstation is just that—apprehension.

“Everything he’s told us has checked out,” Agent Sitwell is saying. “This guy is either a Norse mythology buff or maybe something stranger is going on.”

“We’ve got an 084 in the middle of the desert,” Coulson says, naming the SHIELD code for ‘an unknown object of unexplained origin, probably dangerous’. “A hammer that nothing can move. I’m willing to take a lot on faith, agent.”

“According to our guest, Mjölnir—the hammer of Thor, made by dwarves, capable of leveling mountains.”

Coulson shakes his head. Weapons of great power with important names—ancient names out of stories—appearing in the real world. It’s enough to make his skin ripple.

“You know what this reminds me of?” he says, looking at the hammer—it gleams, innocuously, under the fluorescent compound lights, but he nonetheless feels like he’s being watched. “Those rumors out of Ireland a few years ago…”

“What rumors, sir?” Agent Sitwell asks.

Coulson shakes his head. “Never mind,” he says. “Where’s Barton? I want him on standby, just in case.”

\-- 

The mortals’ compound is flimsy and uncomfortable. The thin walls—made of a compound substance the humans have told him is called ‘plastic’—are hardly enough to hold him if he does not wish to be held even in his weakened state. Thor has waited, he thinks, quite patiently.

They have found Mjölnir. It is the reason for their appearance, here today, and the reason they have taken Jane’s things. The man who questioned him, who calls himself Son of Coul, promised that if he answered their questions Thor would be able to take back what was rightfully his.

Also, he has promised Jane to cooperate. What he does not know about the universe is vast, but he does know that promises are important to wizards. They work in words, and in truths properly told, and he would not break his word to her without great reason.

So he has tried, for Jane’s sake and for the sake of Mjölnir, to answer their questions. He cannot answer everything. Some things he does not know, and some things are not his secrets to be told—whether they are Asgard’s secrets, or the restrictions of a _sevarfrith_ world.

He is growing impatient, and close to breaking free of his restraints, when Coulson arrives. His nose is still bandaged. He acted rashly, he knows, but still Thor feels proud of the accomplishment. 

“Alright,” the man says. “I’ve spoken with my superiors, if you’ll come with me, you can try the hammer.”

Thor smiles, trying to ignore the apprehension building in him. Surely, he thinks, his father would not have sent Mjölnir to the mortal world without reason.

“Thank you, Son of Coul,” he says, and follows the man. He can feel eyes on him, curious mortals watching half from fear. They are stumbling, half-blind creatures, but he is beginning to see that there is cleverness and bravery in them, just as there is selfishness and arrogance and fear.

Mjölnir sits in the center of the compound, embedded in a pillar of rock, king among weapons upon a flimsy throne. It still glitters, even under the harsh lights the humans use, lit from within by the spirit of lightning at its forging long ago. Coulson nods, and Thor approaches alone.

Even before he touches the shaft, he knows that something is wrong. Mjölnir is closed off to him, its ancient voice silent.

Despair in his heart, Thor pulls at the hammer, but it stubbornly refuses his call. He knows the meaning of that refusal. Mjölnir finds him worthy no longer, it seems. He has nothing to blame, but knowledge of his own failure.

There is a _crack_ of displaced air, a flickering of light, and suddenly Jane is standing there with Darcy and looking around confused. Jane’s gaze flickers briefly to Mjölnir, then Thor, then the rest of the agents watching the center of the compound.

“Oops,” Jane says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally we get a Thor POV! For those of you who were curious about how much Coulson knows-- he's not a wizard, but he's definitely a lot more sensitive to the goings on of wizardry than most people. The 'rumors out of Ireland' do refer to the events of A Wizard Abroad.


	6. Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been struggling a bit with the middle part of this story, and also distracted by other things, so consequently this chapter took a while.

Her plan, Jane thinks, is simple. Transport just outside the compound, enact a spell that will make her and Darcy unnoticeable, find Thor and hopefully her equipment and maybe also Darcy’s iPod (if there’s time), plant a mass psychotropic confusion which will keep SHIELD busy enough for her to contact a Senior to liaise with them, and take it from there.

She smiles weakly at Darcy. “You know this plan is very shaky and likely to fall apart.”

Darcy nods. “You said that already. A thousand times.”

“If we’re not back by morning, Erik is going to come get us,” Jane says. Knowing Erik, he might come earlier.

She’s not quite sure how Darcy argued her way into coming along, except that Darcy is incredibly persistent when she wants something. _I could still leave her behind,_ Jane thinks—except that she gave her word, and she’s not going to break that lightly.

“Okay,” she says, and opens her manual and starts speaking. The Speech has a way of sneaking up on her, at first simply her shaky voice alone in the gathering dusk, their long shadows leaning in. The great bowl of the sky, streaked purple and studded with the first stars of evening, waiting and watching. Every grain of sand listening to her words. She smiles when she wraps Darcy into the spell, the syllables coming faster and faster, warm like starlight on her lips. She races to the end of the spell, caught up in its momentum, until at last she is at the end and there is sudden silence.

The spell takes.

Jane feels herself jerked sideways, caught by some unknown force. There is another voice beside hers in the Speech, ancient and powerful, dragging her in. She does not sense malice from it, only insistence. It’s as futile as fighting gravity, and she’s not sure she has the energy to set herself back on course, not now that the spell has gained its momentum.

Instead she tightens her hold on Darcy and braces for impact.

They reappear inside a plastic compound flooded by spotlights with a sound like a small thunderclap. Jane winces. She hasn’t done a transit that sloppy since she was fifteen. She is a gating specialist after all. Her skull aches with the backlash of the spell gone wrong.

She has found Thor at least, and the source of the wizardry that threw her off course. It is a hammer, embedded in a pillar of sandstone, and even from here she can _feel_ its regard. It is lit by some kind of inner glow, and Jane feels electricity in the air, making her hair stand up. She’s heard stories of ancient and powerful weapons, named and ensouled and given a life beyond that of ordinary matter. She’s found one, here in the middle of nowhere New Mexico.

 _When gods walk the earth, what do you expect?_ she wonders.

Thor seems lost, hand on the hammer which is radiating disapproval. If it weren’t all ancient and wise and all-powerful, Jane would swear that it is _sulking._ It would almost be funny, if not for the effect on Thor. He looks to her, lost and confused, an entreaty for help that Jane doesn’t know how to answer.

That’s when she notices several dozen SHIELD agents moving in. They’ve drawn their guns and are staring at her and Darcy with disturbing intensity.

“Oops,” is all that comes out of her mouth. _Plans,_ Jane thinks with dismay, _really have a nasty habit of going awry._

Jane fights panic. She hasn’t been in a situation like this since she was young and going on Errantry was a common occurrence. She starts going through all of her options. She doesn’t have many offensive spells, and even fewer that are nonlethal. She could maybe maintain a shield spell and grab Thor and do a transit out, but after the disaster the hammer made of her last transit she’s not sure how that would go.

Darcy throws her hands up into the air. “We surrender!” she calls and Jane sighs.

\--

In all her life, Darcy has been to the Principal’s Office only a couple of times, and the police station only once, for something that was _totally_ not her fault. This is definitely the first time she’s been detained by a secret government organization, probably about to be sent away to secret prison.

Agent Coulson is sitting across the cold metal table from her, flipping through an ominous looking black folder with a strange looking winged logo. Darcy is trying to decide if it’s more or less intimidating to be interrogated by someone sporting a very purple black eye, decides it’s less intimidating because she knows he got it on the wrong end of Thor’s fist.

“So, Miss Lewis,” Coulson says, setting the file down. “Political science major at Culver University, mediocre GPA, a bit of a partier if rumors are to be believed—“

“Okay, NSA,” Darcy quips, because her mouth runs quicker than her common sense a lot of the time.

Coulson smiles. “Facebook, actually. I admit I’m a bit surprised to see you here in New Mexico working with an astrophysicist.”

“Wow, I am so switching to Twitter after this.”

Coulson changes tack, leans forward across the table. “What I want to know is how you got into our compound.”

What’s she supposed to say? _Oh, yeah, a wizard brought me. That’d go over real well._ Darcy mimics Coulson and leans across the table. “No idea. Ask Jane. Shouldn’t I get a lawyer or something, if you’re interrogating me?”

“We’re a spooky extrajudicial agency outside of the purview of the US government,” Coulson says. “So, no.”

Darcy almost cracks a laugh at that. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that Coulson is trying to be likeable. _So where’s the bad cop?_ the part of her that’s watched too much TV wonders. “So now that we’ve established that what you’re up to is _super illegal,_ I’m guessing you won’t care if I tell you that you’re really not allowed to hold Thor?”

Coulson raises one curious brow. “Oh?”

Darcy smiles sweetly, the smile of somebody who is using her poli-sci degree for the very first time, and using it to _kick ass_. “Yeah,” she says. “Hasn’t he told you? He’s a foreign national, a prince from another planet. I’m pretty sure that means he’s got diplomatic immunity.”

\--

Jane is sure that SHIELD has left her stewing alone in a white-walled room furnished only with a metal table as a means of softening her up for interrogation, but she’s been using the time to go over what went wrong with her spell. It’s clear that the power inside the hammer knocked her off course, but she’s not sure _why._

She’s got the sense that It wanted her to see something, but what that might be is still a mystery to her, and she can’t get the image of Thor’s despair out of her head.

The pneumatic swish of a door opening interrupts her thoughts. Coulson is standing there, impeccably suited, black eye rapidly purpling. She still has to thank Thor for that. “Your assistant was spectacularly unhelpful,” he says, taking a seat across the table from Jane. “I’m hoping you’ll be more cooperative, Miss Foster.”

Jane scowls. “It’s Doctor, actually.” She didn’t go through her PhD program for nothing and she doesn’t appreciate him condescending to her.

Coulson actually has the grace to look abashed. “My apologies. You’re supposed to be brilliant in your field, if a bit eccentric. My scientists tell me you’re studying wormhole theory, chasing esoteric theories. What I don’t understand is how that translates into you suddenly appearing inside a secured compound, completely undetected.”

For a second, Jane panics, trapped. Most people won’t notice wizardry until it’s waved right in front of her face. Except she just took wizardry and shoved it right at Coulson, and of course he noticed. There are wizards who specialize in this sort of thing, keeping the rest of the world from noticing things going on behind the scenes, that Jane could call if this gets out of hand, but that’s not much help right here and right now. If the stupid hammer hadn’t knocked her off course—then again, maybe this is what it wanted.

She’s had more than her share of frustrations, gaining acceptance for her theories in a _sevarfrith_ world. She’s thought time and again how much easier it would be if everyone just _knew_ that there was wizardry at work in the world, and Errantry didn’t have to be conducted in secret. Besides, the rules about secrecy aren’t hard and fast.

 _Hopefully this won’t blow up in my face,_ Jane thinks, and crosses her fingers. But it feels right.

“I used wizardry to get inside your compound,” Jane says.

Whatever Coulson was expecting from her, it wasn’t that. He leans back, raises both eyebrows. “What, like Harry Potter?”

“Why is that everyone’s first assumption?” Jane wonders, and shakes her head. “No, it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s power, but it’s also responsibility…”

“I’m listening,” Coulson says.

So Jane explains, the very short version which still manages to take quite a bit of time. She lays out a brief history of the Universe, how the One brought it into being and created the Powers That Be to shape and guide the nascent Universe—the existence of entropy and death and the Lone One—the Speech and its power to shape all that existed in the Universe—and lastly the Wizard’s Oath and what it meant to serve Life and fight against entropy.

True to his word, Coulson listens, saying nothing. Her own father wasn’t this silent when she told him, instead full of questions. When she’s done, Jane smiles tentatively, not sure what to think of Coulson. He’s been condescending and rude to her, but he’s also listened to her story. Coulson draws in a deep breath, silent for a long moment.

“Well,” he says finally. “Cosmic theological issues aside, it still doesn’t explain why you’re in my compound.”

Jane nods. “It’s Thor. I’m on Errantry—kind of an assignment straight from the Powers That Be—and he’s my responsibility.”

“And the unmovable hammer that I’m supposed to keep an eye on? Is that your responsibility too?”

Jane shrugs. “I’m not sure. It seems pretty likely though, doesn’t it? A great weapon like that, landing maybe fifty miles from where I’ve been working? Coincidences like that pretty much always manage to mean something.”

“But you don’t know? I thought this was your assignment.”

Jane rolls her eyes upwards. She’s had this argument often enough. “They don’t tend to give us a lot of instruction,” she says.

“Sounds tough,” Coulson says. And he shakes his head. “I’m not sure how much of this I believe, but I do believe that you’re not out to do any harm. But I can’t just let you go—“

“But—!”

“—without some sort of supervision,” Coulson finishes. He smiles, tentative. “I believe we’re on the same side, Dr. Foster, and if we want to have even a hope of figuring out this mysterious hammer we’re going to need your help. We’ll return you, and Miss Lewis and our alien friend back to your lab.”

“ _With_ the equipment you stole.” Jane crosses her arms across her chest.

“Borrowed,” Coulson says without missing a beat. “And we’ll send one of our agents along, to protect you and to keep us in the loop.”

It’s not a perfect solution—Jane doesn’t like the idea of making a SHIELD agent privy to her work, but she’s not sure she’s got any choice in the situation. She nods, slowly. “Alright then.”

Coulson stretches out a hand, shakes hers. “I’m glad that we could come to an accord, Dr. Foster,” he says, and he stands up. The door opens, and Coulson calls to an agents standing on the other side. “Sitwell, can you find Barton for me? I need to talk to him about an assignment.”


	7. New Arrivals

Agent Clint Barton has been on some strange missions in his time with SHIELD. He even came into this mission expecting something weird—hell, 084 is SHIELD code for ‘weird shit we don’t understand’—but he’s having some trouble wrapping his mind around secret wizardry and alien gods and ancient Norse legendary weapons.

_Nat is not going to believe me when I tell her,_ he thinks with a chuckle. _He’s_ not even sure that he believes himself. _She’s going to be so jealous that she got stuck babysitting Stark._

He focuses on the current task at hand, which is holding very heavy scientific equipment secure while in the back of a government issued van traveling at 50 mph over a bumpy, unpaved New Mexican backroad. Dr. Foster had some _very_ specific instructions for how her equipment was to be handled, and Coulson’s orders were to listen to Dr. Foster.

She’s huddling in the back of the van with Thor, one hand clutching what looks like a small satellite dish with a complex LED readout precariously attached by duct tape and prayer, her other hand resting on the alien’s knee. Clint wonders, with some interest, how long _that’s_ been going on since—according to Coulson—Thor’s only been on earth two days.

Dr. Foster’s assistant is sitting across from Clint and has, for the first time on their journey, glanced up from her thorough inspection of a very battered iPod. “Wait, back up—what’s a mew-mew?”

Thor smiles, indulgent. “Mjölnir,” he repeats, at the same time as Jane answers, “Thor’s hammer.”

Thor’s look is wistful and far off. “Perhaps not. Mjölnir, it seems, has rejected me.”

Clint frowns because that, of everything he’s heard today, that makes the least amount of sense. “What, like it can _think_?”

Thor nods, but Dr. Foster is the one who explains. “It’s not actually that uncommon. All matter has at least a bit of self-awareness—it’s a natural side effect of the universe being built on the Speech—although most of it doesn’t have enough consciousness to really constitute what we’d think of as thought. Weapons like that, hand-crafted and named, given years of care and use and purpose, so many that they turn into legends? It’s only natural that they’d develop some opinions about how they should be used.”

He supposes that makes a little bit of sense, although the idea of things having thoughts is a bit of an uncomfortable one. “Like Excalibur,” Clint says finally. “Only Arthur could pull it from the stone.”

“Actually,” Dr. Foster’s assistant says, “Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone were two completely different swords. Excalibur came from a lake.” Looking around at the car, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What? I _read_.—although that one I got out of a listicle. 

“Excalibur is probably a good example, actually,” Dr. Foster smiles, he thinks, half reluctantly. “Sharur out of Sumerian mythology, Dyrnwyn out of Welsh… the Spear of Lugh showed up as part of an intervention in Ireland a few years ago.”

Clint raises his eyebrows. “A few years ago?” He wonders if SHIELD has heard about this legendary weapon showing up on earth—and if they have what they’ve done about it.

Dr. Foster shakes her head. “I don’t know all the details. It’s not my area of expertise. I only got the précis because my mom’s in that neck of the woods, and it was fairly significant. It’s not on earth or—anything we would recognize as corporeal anymore, to my understanding.”

Clint can’t decipher Dr. Foster’s frown at that. It’s probably for the best that the spear is out of SHIELD’s reach. He knows the organization that he works for, and while he’s well versed in the good that they do, he’s under no illusions about how far they’d go. And there are a lot of organizations out there less scrupulous than SHIELD. It’s probably for the best that no one can lift Mjölnir either, even if the reason for it comes down to a hunk of space metal throwing a temper tantrum.

And besides, he’s curious—

He shifts his bow from where it sits on the seat next to him, into Dr. Foster’s line of sight. “How about this?” he asks, not sure if it’s impolite to ask, and a touch nervous. What if his own bow _doesn’t like him?_ “Does it have any opinions on things?”

Dr. Foster holds out a hand for his bow, and Clint hands it over reluctantly. Normally nobody but him is allowed to touch it, but considering how Dr. Foster treats her equipment he’s willing to trust her. Though he watches like his namesake as she leans in and starts speaking to the bow.

The words are strange but familiar, sliding past his understanding like he’s forgot to wear hearing aids and everything _should_ make sense but doesn’t quite add up. The atmosphere in the back of the van gets quiet, and Clint feels a ripple of gooseflesh.

Dr. Foster hands his bow back with a smile. “It likes you,” she says, and Clint breathes a tiny sigh of relief. He’s never considered himself a very sentimental guy, but he feels something like warmth well up in his heart. “It likes to shoot straight and far, and it says you always hit your target.”

\--

Jane oversees the unloading of her equipment back in her lab. It’s nowhere near organized, but that will have to wait for another time. At least it’s all _there._ She’s saddled Darcy with taking Thor and their newest addition over to Isabella’s Diner for some food for all of them. It’ll mean pancakes twice in one day, but the days when she could throw around power with impunity are long since passed and even a couple of simple transits have made her ravenous to make up the energy expenditure in calories.

She means to head up to the roof, to get some reading done. She’s long overdue for a look over the manual, and there are a couple of things Thor has mentioned that have made her curious.

“Jane,” Erik says, when the door swings shut behind Darcy. “Do you have a moment?”

She sets her manual down next to a stack of several months’ worth of star charts, joins Erik where over where he’s organizing spectral analysis data. He’s frowning, and she doesn’t think it’s at the data, which he’s gone over already.

“What is it?” she asks, already knowing that tone of voice. She’s heard it from her mother, and before his death she heard it from her father as well.

“Are you sure,” Erik asks, “that you know what you’re doing?”

Jane sighs. “I’ve been a wizard since I was fourteen,” she says. “That’s more than half my life. I’ve done far more dangerous errantry than this.” She remembers, briefly, her Ordeal and the only time she ever confronted the Lone Power directly. Not even four months ago she was out of Tevaral, helping to stabilize a system of temperamental worldgates for a species-wide evacuation of a doomed planet. Helping Thor acclimate to Earth is _easy_ compared to those.

Erik nods, but there’s still tightness around his mouth. “I trust you with the wizardry,” he says. “But the rest of this—SHIELD, Agent Barton—even Thor.” He looks at her, imploring. “Isn’t there any way you could—pass this on?”

Jane shakes her head. “That’s not how it works,” she says. “The Powers pick us for a reason, and we can’t just refuse them. The work is too important.”

“I just want to make sure you’re being careful.”

Jane smiles, heart filling with love for this man who stepped into the role of father without question or complaint. She reaches out, hugs him, then pulls back to look him in the eye. “Of course,” she says. “If I think it’s too much for me, I promise, I’ll call in help. But you have to trust me.”

Erik smiles. “I do trust you, Jane.”

“Thank you,” Jane says, feeling her eyes go hot with tears. She clears her throat, blinks her eyes. “I’m going up to the roof. I have some reading I need to do.”

Erik waves her on, with a promise that he’ll start organizing the equipment. Jane pours more coffee into her mug, mixes in cream until she has enough to mask the acrid taste of coffee that’s been sitting in the pot all day, then grabs her manual and heads to the roof.

The sun has been baking the roof of the lab in black box radiation all day, and it’s pleasantly warm up there, even if May hasn’t quite warmed up to desert heat just yet. Jane settles into the cheap lawn furniture that was one of her first purchases in this town, and opens up her manual.

Obligingly, it has a very thick chapter on Asgard. It exists at a nexus of wormholes connecting star systems separated by vast amounts of space but connected by symmetry in spacetime. Thor had called them the Nine Realms, and the wormhole hub connecting them the World’s Tree, Yggdrasil.

The planet itself seems impossible, a flat accretion disk with no associated stellar body or other orbital mass, it instead draws enough radiation from Yggdrasil itself to remain a viable world. Jane has to stop herself from delving into the complex calculations displayed in the Speech and continue reading.

The current dominant society is similarly fascinating. Fifteen thousand years, and yet only four generations old by the reckoning of Thor’s people. That longevity seems to spring from his species choice. It’s spelled out in broad strokes, how the Lone Power came to Asgard and was utterly defeated and death pushed away to the prophesied Ragnarok.

The door to the roof banging open makes Jane jump, and she closes her manual. Thor is there, carrying two Styrofoam takeout boxes that smell heavenly, and Jane smiles.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Thor says. “Erik Selving said you were up here, and you were hungry.”

“I’m starving,” Jane admits and reaches for a takeout box. She opens it up to find a hamburger, instead of the expected pancakes, and wonders whose idea it was to get her protein. She’s not complaining though, and digs in.

Thor watches her for a second, then tucks into his own hamburger. Jane notes—with some amusement—that he has two of them. “What were you reading?” he asks, between bites, with a significant look at her manual.

“I was reading about you, actually,” Jane admits. “Well, your culture—Asgard. Your species’ Choice.”

“Ah,” Thor says, with the slightest touch of irony. “The Realm Eternal.”

“You did kick the Lone Power out by his backside.” It’s impressive enough that Jane’s only ever heard of that happening once—and that was a very, _very_ special case.

Thor shakes his head. “Not entirely,” he says, and it is sad and wistful, as it always seems to be when he speaks of his home. “We have our longevity, sure, but we are also a people marked by war and conflict. Even our most recent peace has seen battle, and I… broke that peace.”

Jane grimaces.  It’s not hard to see how the Lone Power would see that as a victory by half-measures. Sure, It gets kicked out of Asgard, but It gets paid back double in terms of the death that they bring to other worlds—and It still gets Asgard in the end anyways. It’s that kind of backhanded bargain that the Power that invented Death is known for.

Thor is still gazing across the evening-touched streets of Puente Antiguo. “I have contributed more than my fair share to That One’s domain, I am ashamed to admit. I craved war, and glory in battle, and so I sought it out with no heed to the consequences.”

A touch of cold air breezes across the rooftop, ruffling Jane’s hair and sending goosebumps up her arms. “Too little too late, I’m sorry to say,” says a new, urbane voice. Jane whirls around. There is another man standing on the roof with them, dressed in a grey suit and hound’s-tooth patterned scarf that wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of a magazine. His pale eyes are wide with emotion, his shoulders held straight and square, as if he is holding in a terrible burden.

“Loki,” Thor says, and Jane realizes that this must be Thor’s brother who got them both into and out of trouble on Vanaheim. “What are you doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand cue Loki.


	8. Reunions

“I had to see you,” Loki responds.

Jane’s breath catches on the tension in the air. Thor has realized that something must be wrong. “What’s happened?” he asks, leaning towards his brother, full of unselfconscious need for news of home. “Tell me—is it Jötunheim? Let me explain to father—“

“Father is dead.”

Thor rocks back, stricken at Loki’s plain pronouncement, furrowing his brow as if waiting for the news to sink in. Jane can’t help but think of that phone call from the hospital that left her world feeling like so much breakable glass. She reaches out, takes Thor’s hand in hers. His fingers curl, unconsciously.

“What?” Thor asks, still not quite believing.

“Your banishment,” Loki explains, hesitating. “The threat of a new war. It was too much for him to bear.” Thor looks down, heavy with guilt, and Jane finds herself with the desire to shake Loki by his hound’s-tooth scarf for laying this knowledge on him. “You mustn’t blame yourself,” Loki continues, though Jane knows that he will. How could he not, after that? “I know that you loved him. I tried to tell him so but he wouldn’t listen…”

Loki pauses, pale eyes flickering to Jane before they return to Thor. “The burden of the throne has fallen to me now,” he says.

Thor looks up, with a kind of desperate hope in his eyes. He doesn’t speak for a few moments, and when he does it’s quiet. “Can I come home?” he asks, and he squeezes Jane’s hand so hard it’s painful, but Jane does not pull away.

The shake of his head that Loki gives is so small Jane almost misses it. “The truce with Jötunheim is conditional upon your exile,” he says, guilt twisting his face. Thor squeezes Jane’s hand harder, starts to protest, but Loki cuts him off. “ _Your mother_ has forbidden your return.”

Your _mother,_ Jane thinks, _not our mother. What’s_ that _about, I wonder?_

“This is goodbye, brother,” Loki says, and for a second time he looks to Jane. “I hope that you will find your way here on Midgard. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Thor responds. “ _I_ am sorry.” The evening air is heavy with that sorrow, between two brothers who now may never see one another again, torn apart by circumstance. Jane’s throat constricts with pity. “Thank you for coming here.”

“Farewell,” Loki says, but he does not move until Thor nods his permission to leave, and then he turns and is gone.

“Goodbye,” Thor says, too late.

Jane can’t think, can’t even breathe, even though Loki's departure was perhaps the most elegant personal gating she’s ever seen. Instead she wraps her arms around Thor’s broad shoulders, and squeezes as hard as she can. He might have just lost his father, his mother and his brother, and his entire world, but he’s not alone in this universe. Thor only holds her tighter, head drooped on her shoulder, tears falling silently.

They stay like that for a long while, holding one another while the sunset throws long shadows over the New Mexico town and dusk gathers. Thor raises his head from Jane’s shoulder. He looks tired and drawn, but he still manages a watery smile as he tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Thank you, Jane,” he says.

Jane nods. “I lost my dad too—five years ago. I was in college, working on my Masters thesis—it felt like the ground had been ripped out from under me.” She takes a deep breath, because talking about it still hurts, even if the original wound has had time to heal. “I can only imagine what it must feel like for you.”

“The words I had for my father were to call him an old man and a fool,” Thor says. “If it were possible, I would go back and unsay those words. I think I understand now, a little of what he was trying to teach me.”

_Too little, too late_ , Loki’s words echo in Jane’s mind. The whole conversation was strange, in a way she can’t quite put her finger on.

“What did Loki mean,” Jane asks, unsure if she’s overstepping herself, “about your mother?”

“My mother is Queen of Asgard,” Thor says. “But she is also—what your people might call our Planetary Advisory. If she thought my return threatened the safety of Asgard, it would aggrieve her, but she would not hesitate to forbid it.”

Jane’s eyebrows raise at that. _His dad’s the king and his mom’s the_ Planetary _? Talk about a legacy to live up to!_ She’s worked with a few Planetaries in her time, very memorably including earth’s Irina Mladen once, and without fail they are always intensely dedicated to their work.It still strikes her as odd, the way that Loki spoke, casually deflecting any responsibility, but any concerns she could raise are secondary to Thor’s fresh grief. She looks at their half-eaten and forgotten hamburgers.

They’re much colder by now. Jane talks to them in the Speech, coaxing the molecules to vibrate just a bit faster, enough to warm them. She hands Thor his food.

“You should eat something,” she says.

Thor happily obliges.

\--

“How much do you want to bet they’re making out?”

Clint Barton looks up from an inspection of his bow—after Jane’s talk with the weapon he’s feeling sentimental—to look at Darcy Lewis. “No bet.” He’s seen the way Thor and Dr. Foster look at each other.

Dr. Selvig looks up from his work, scowling. “Isn’t that a bit nosy?” he asks.

Darcy shrugs, entirely unashamed. “I’m only pointing out the really obvious elephant in the room,” she says. “And besides, if you want to talk nosy— _he’s_ a spy.” She jerks her thumb at Clint.

“I know,” Dr. Selvig says darkly, and he waves Darcy over to help organize equipment and data. Clint is unsurprised to not be invited. From what he can gather, Dr. Selvig is protective of Jane, distrustful of SHIELD, and kind of grumpy in general. Of course, if Coulson wanted to snoop on Dr. Foster’s work, he’d have sent one of the Brainiac types and not Clint, whose grounding in physics does not extend to the theoretical kind.

He doesn’t point this out.

When Darcy finally does check on Jane and Thor, somewhere nearing midnight, she reports that they are asleep on the lawn furniture on the roof of the lab. This earns another scowl from Dr. Selvig. “There’s no rain forecasted for tonight, and it was _really_ cute, so I say just let them be.” From this, Clint gets the impression that Dr. Foster routinely sleeps on the roof. Darcy looks, speculatively, at Clint. “Which I think means the couch in here is free for tonight, and tomorrow we figure out a more stable solution. Or you can sleep in Jane’s trailer, that’s probably free.”

“Here is fine,” Clint says. Spy or not, it’s still a breach of Dr. Foster’s privacy to be in her living space without her permission, and he’s never liked sleeping in confined spaces.

Darcy takes her leave. Dr. Selvig spends a few more minutes puttering about the lab, obviously watching Clint for any snooping. Clint makes a show of readying himself for bed, finding a small attached bathroom in which to change and brush his teeth, and tries not to seem amused. All in all, Dr. Selvig’s suspicions are benign.

Eventually Dr. Selvig leaves, yawning, for his hotel room. It’s later than Clint would have expected, but then, the man is an astrophysicist. He should have expected them to keep odd hours.

Only once Dr. Selvig’s shadow disappears does Clint get out his phone and call Coulson for his check in.

“Do you realize what time it is, Barton?” Coulson’s voice, over the phone, is snappish. Clint ignores this. If Coulson wanted him to check in at regular hours, he’d have mentioned it in his brief.

“Who knew that people who study stars would stay up late?” he asks instead, before settling into business. “All quiet here. Dr. Foster and our alien friend had a long talk on the roof, but I think that was mostly personal. Did your guys see anything?” He’s seen the hidden shadows moving on the roof of the supermarket across the street.

“Nothing unusual,” Coulson says. “I owe Hill a twenty, though. I thought you wouldn’t be able to spot our guys.”

“Shouldn’t’ve taken that bet, Coulson,” Clint says.  “How are things looking over there?”

“Quiet,” Coulson says. “We had a small spike in radiation monitoring around 20:00 but nothing significant.”

Clint frowns. That’s local twilight, around the time the surveillance shifts would have been changing. He’s had a prickling at the back of his neck, ever since he got this assignment. “I’ve got a bad feeling, Coulson.”

“So you feel it too,” Coulson says.

“Yeah,” Clint responds, quiet. “Like rain’s coming.”

“Keep your coms on,” Coulson responds, and Clint knows that it’s an order. “Keep an eye on Thor and Dr. Foster. If anything comes up, you’ll be the first to know.

“Roger that,” Clint responds, and he hangs up the phone. It takes him a long time to get to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor's conversation is almost entirely cribbed from the Thor movies.


	9. Downtime

Jane wakes when the desert sun directly in her eyes. She thinks about going back to sleep, but the fire’s gone out and it’s cold enough still that hot coffee sounds like a marvelous idea. Also, she’s suddenly and grossly aware that she forgot to brush her teeth last night.

Thor is still sleeping, snoring lightly, golden hair falling over his mouth. He looks less like a prince and more like a man like this, sleeping with no cares or concerns. Jane drapes her blanket over him and heads downstairs into her lab.

Agent Barton is already awake, and brewing a fresh pot of coffee.  He’s apparently not a morning talker, because he only gives her a brief nod of acknowledgement before she leaves for her trailer. Once there, Jane brushes her teeth and changes into new clothes, which has her feeling like a normal human being again.

She crosses the parking lot back to her lab-slash-kitchen-and-living-area. Agent Barton has taken a seat at the breakfast table and is reading over the Santa Fe Reporter. The coffee smells heavenly. Jane pours herself a cup, generous with the cream, and takes a sip. It’s very good.

Jane smiles, tentative. “It seems like secret agents are good for something,” she jokes. She may not like that he has to be here, but he seems like a good enough person despite that. “Maybe I should get rid of my intern and just keep you.”

“I heard that!” Darcy swings the door wide open, and heads straight for the coffee pot. “You would be lost without me—lost! No one else here is going to organize all your files.”

“Dr. Selvig seemed to be doing most of that,” Clint observes.

Darcy squints at Clint. “Since you guys messed them up in the first place, doesn’t that mean you should fix them?”

“Take it up with SHIELD HQ.”

“And how do you propose I find that, genius?”

Jane wanders off, leaving Darcy to talk at Agent Barton, coffee cup in one hand and manual in the other. A night of solid sleep has not waylaid her misgivings over Loki’s appearance. She flips to the very end of the chapter on Asgard. Her reading confirms most of what Thor’s brother said last night, spelling out in broad strokes a recent renewal of conflict with an _aresh-hav_ culture called Jötuns (Jane’s eye lingers over that—there are not many worlds the Powers That Be declare lost to the machinations of the Lone Power), the banishment that resulted in Thor’s presence here on earth, and the ascension of a new king. The book declares the previous king Odin in _excontinual stasis_ , followed by a long string of complicated medical terms in the Speech that gives Jane a headache just to look at.

After that there is only an ambiguous and frustrating: _Further information not available: current status subject to change._

Jane makes a credible stab at the complicated Speech terms, but gets only as far as _aesculapian mind-body zeta-wave pattern_ before giving up in frustration. Instead she starts on breakfast. Eggs and toast are the order of the day, as they’re one of the only things in her fridge that she can cook in large quantities on short notice.

While the eggs are scrambling, Erik arrives from his room at the local motel and Thor makes his way downstairs. Jane recruits him to help her serve up five plates, and makes a mental note to have Darcy do the dishes. (What’s the point of having an intern if you can’t assign her menial chores you hate?)

There’s not enough chairs for her unexpected glut of guests, so she waves Thor over to her desk where her manual is still sitting open to the display of Odin’s current condition. He takes a seat on the metal stool that Darcy loves to spin in and digs into his eggs.

“I wanted you to take a look at this,” Jane says, sliding the manual over to Thor.

Thor studies the manual page for a few minutes, his brow furrowed. Jane concentrates on eating her eggs, letting him work. “This cannot be right,” he says. “Loki said that our father was _dead._ ”

Jane’s stomach drops, her fears confirmed. Pain wars with fury in Thor’s tight frown. She hates being the bearer of bad news. “The Speech was a little confusing,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure what I was looking at…”

“The Odinsleep is not death, but instead a healing rest,” Thor explains, solemn and quiet. “It is meant to restore the power he holds as king of Asgard.”

 _Another effect of the Asgardian Choice,_ Jane thinks. It sounds a good deal like what can happen to wizards suffering brainburn from using spells too strong for them without proper shielding—although a comatose rest state is only one of many possible outcomes. _Still, why would Loki lie about it?_

“I do not know,” Thor responds to Jane’s thought, “but I intend to find out.”

Jane’s breath catches. Thor is not a wizard, but he still operates largely in the Speech—bleedover in thought is not uncommon in two Speech-users who have grown close. She still feels herself go hot, and Thor’s steady gaze is not helping matters.

“Dr. Foster?”

Jane jumps away from Thor at Agent Barton’s call, straightening her hair and wiping suddenly clammy palms on her shirt. “Y-yes?” she stutters, and then more forcefully, “What did you need?” Quickly she whisks up her breakfast plate and takes it to the kitchen attaché, where Agent Barton is listening in on an ear-mounted communicator.

He smiles wryly when she comes in, followed closely by Thor, and says, “Coulson reports three newcomers in town dressed like—and I quote—‘Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood.’ He thought it might be important to pass along.”

Jane raises an eyebrow at Thor, but he only shrugs at her unasked question, the pop culture eluding him. It’s Darcy who finally rolls her eyes and says, “We are eating breakfast with a Viking Space Prince—of course it’s important! Come on Jane, time to bring out the welcome wagon.”

\--

Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood ends up being an apropos description, along with a fourth member that Jane thinks deserves ‘tall Gimli’ for his massive red beard and intimidating axe. Three men and a woman in armor and carrying weapons. They are striding down the street with no regard for jaywalking laws, drawing stares from the people of Puente Antiguo. Fortunately for _sevarfrith_ earth, the four look more like lost LARPers than an alien invasion, with their gleaming armor and weapons.

When Thor sees them, a smile cuts across his face and he rushes forward. The four newcomers are also smiling, the broad grins of people who have known each other for a very long time. “My friends!” Thor greets, and embraces the broad redheaded around the shoulders before doing the same to each of the others in turn.

“Think they know each other?” Darcy asks, one eyebrow raised. Erik shakes his head, a bewildered counterpoint to Agent Barton’s grim shadow.

Jane grins, despite herself, and walks towards the group. It’s a bit awkward, breaking up such an effusive reunion, but if nothing else she needs to get them off the middle of the street.

When she approaches, Thor turns and beams at her, and Jane swears her heart skips a beat at his smile. “I am sorry—my friends, meet Jane Foster, wizard and my host during my time here.”

Jane smiles, feeling awkward—not least because she’s the shorted by far in this crowd. “ _Dai’stiho,_ ” she says, waving a little. “I am on errantry and I greet you.”

The bearded redhead places one hand over his breast in a salute, turning his full attention to her. “My apologies, emissary,” he says. “The Lady Sif and the Warrior’s Three at your service. Fandral, Hogun, and myself, Volstagg.” As he says their names he points them out—Xena, Robin Hood, then Jackie Chan.

“Would you like something to drink?” Jane asks, calculating up how much juice she still has in her fridge. “We should get out of the road, at least.”

Thor smiles at Jane, then claps his hands on Fandral and Hogun’s shoulders. “Come, let us partake of refreshment, and you can tell me what news from Asgard,” he says. “I am troubled by what I hear.”

“There are many troubles in Asgard of late,” the Lady Sif says ominously, and Jane feels cold creep up her spine as she leads the way back to the lab.


	10. Destroyer

“Loki was here?” the Lady Sif’s voice is sharp, urgent, as she looks to Jane. Thor’s Asgardian friends are all standing around Jane’s lab, drinking juice or sodas or one of Darcy’s stashed beers.

Jane nods at the question, feeling strangely intimidated by the tall, beautiful woman with the sword and shield. “Yes, last night,” she says. Agent Barton sits up at that, eyes on Jane. “He told us Thor’s father was dead.” Sif frowns, elegant eyebrows knitting together.

“I do not understand the lie,” Thor says, shaking his head. “Loki has ever been one for deception but—never so cruel as that.”

Sif’s fist clenches around the bottle in her hand. “Loki has been changed of late,” she says, worry cracking her voice. “Ever since our return from Jötunheim—he is not himself.”

“He let the Jötuns into Asgard,” Hogun says. He has been silent, only thinking to thank Jane for the glass of juice he’s been sipping at for the last few minutes.

“What?” Thor asks, looking to Hogun.

“It’s why we came to get you,” Fandral supplies. “We attempted to raise our suspicions to Odin, but he had fallen into the Odinsleep, and your mother sequestered with him.”

“And Loki on the throne,” Volstagg says ominously.

“Loki’s jealousy has got the better of him,” Sif says, her look daring the others to contradict her. “That is why he lied to you, Thor, and why he sent the Jötuns. I only fear he will do something even more drastic.”

That pronouncement falls ominously on Jane’s ears with the unfortunate ring of truth. Jötunheim seems to be the core to whatever is going on with Thor’s brother—a world declared _aresh-hav,_ lost to the powers of light. What could he have found there, to have turned him against Thor?

“Umm, guys?” Darcy’s voice from the other room is shaky and urgent. “I think you might wanna come see this.”

Jane excuses herself, and walks over to where her intern is staring out the glass wall of the lab. A funnel cloud that looks eerily similar to the one that dropped Thor is touching down on the ground just outside of town. _High energy worldgate,_ Jane’s brain helpfully supplies.

“Do you think someone else is coming?” Darcy asks, transfixed. A tiny plume of red flares up on the horizon, reminding Jane uncomfortably of an explosion.

Jane looks to Thor’s friends, hoping against the lump of anxiety in her stomach that maybe they’ve just got another friend on their way. Sif shakes her head, her meaning clear—they’ve got no idea who this is, and it’s probably not friendly.

Agent Barton walks up behind her. He has gone ashen-faced listening to his ear-mounted comm. “SHIELD’s been attacked,” he says. “Some giant metal monster with a lot of firepower. No casualties yet, but there’s a lot of injured, and it’s headed for the town.”

Fandral whistles, a low bleak sound. “He’s sent the Destroyer then.”

Jane’s heart is pounding in her ears. She hasn’t been called upon to fight in the name of Erranry all that often, and she hates having it sprung on her. Still. _In Life’s name and in Life’s sake_ —she swore an Oath to defend life, and it’s obvious what she has to do. “We need to get these people out of here,” she says.

\--

The plan is this: Thor’s alien friends will fight the Destroyer, while the rest of them help to get the people of Puente Antiguo out of the way.

Clint has been party to many evacuation procedures over the years, and has seen both how wrong and how right they can go. As far as evacuations go, Puente Antiguo is on the smoother side. He only has to flash his SHIELD badge and tell people to return to their homes in a very official sounding voice, and they’re more than happy to follow his direction. Most of them have just seen what looks like a tornado (according to Dr. Foster a wormhole) touch down and then suck back up into the sky.

He helps where he can—strapping children into cars and wrangling dogs—but eventually the busy noonday downtown is as empty as a ghost town.

He makes his way back towards Main St, checking for any stragglers or holdouts they might have missed. As he gets closer, the ground starts shaking under the weight of heavy, clanging footsteps. Clint readies an arrow rigged to explode on his bowstring.

Instinctively, his eyes flicker to the rooftops. Someone is clambering over them at breathtaking speed—Clint realizes that it is Lady Sif, keeping low, sword at the ready.

“ _For Asgard_!” someone cries, and it is followed by a crunch of breaking glass. Clint breaks into a jog, rounding the corner just in time to see Sif spear the giant metal monster in the back. It’s bent double, bowed by her weight and the pressure from the sword. For a moment there is a breath. The creature hesitates.

It comes to life, metal plates separating as it turns its torso around and a jet of fire shoots from its face-plate. Sif rolls off just in time, abandoning her spear for the cover of the nearby cars. The jet of fire cuts a clean line across Main St, downing power lines and shattering shop windows.

The Destroyer fires another blast, knocking the Lady Sif and her companions back. Clint aims and fires at the open face plate, but his arrow melts and then explodes in midair.

Out of the corner of his eye there is movement. Clint nearly swears. Dr. Foster and Thor are still here—and behind them Dr. Selvig and Darcy. He draws two more specialized arrows and nocks them. Dr. Foster is striding out into the middle of the street, wearing a very dangerous frown and carrying her black notebook. Alone in the middle of the street she looks tiny.

When she speaks the air seems to shiver around each sharp syllable. The hair goes up on the back of Clint’s arms—it reminds him too much of the tension in the air before a gunfight. _Wizards and fire breathing monsters,_ Clint thinks. _I was not trained for this._

On the third word the Destroyer slows its relentless march down the street. On the fifth it stops entirely. On the sixth and seventh he can see grim satisfaction knit between her brows.

There is a crack of displaced air, and a sound like words spoken in a crisp accent. Dr. Foster opens her mouth for the eighth word, but no sound comes out. Clint can’t see her breathing.

The destroyer opens its face plate for another shot. Without thinking Clint dives and rolls in front of Dr. Foster and lets his arrows fly. One is charred to nothing before it makes its shot, but the other makes its mark, a plastic container of hydrofluoric acid shattering over its chest armor.

The blast of fire hits a nearby car, flipping it skyward. The falling car bowls Clint over, pinning him and just barely missing Dr. Foster who has been pulled back by Thor. She is gasping and choking for air, tears streaming from her eyes.

Clint tries to pull himself free, but his legs are pinned and any movement is excruciating. He clenches his teeth against a scream. His legs, he thinks, are probably broken.

“Do not try to move,” Thor kneels down next to Clint, setting Sif’s shield on the ground and waving two of his friends over—Hogun and Fandral. Clint wonders deliriously when they got there. “We are going to try to pull this off of you.”

For Asgardians, lifting a car is easy, but it has to be done painstakingly slow because any quick movements send another jolt of pain up Clint’s spine. He does scream when they finally roll the car off of him and all the pressure that was on his leg turns suddenly into pain.

“Get him out of here,” Thor orders. “And after that you must return to Asgard, you must stop Loki.”

“What about you?” Fandral asks.

Thor smiles, calm and reassuring. “Do not worry my friends—I have a plan.” The smile remains, until his friends have picked Clint up off the ground and started to carry him away, but when Clint looks back it is replaced by the grim look of a man going to his death.


	11. Defender

If there is one thing that Thor has learned over his time here on earth, it is that humanity deserves defending. Jane and her sleepy little town took him in and helped him to find his way, and in return he has put them into harm’s way.

Jane is still taking deep and gasping breaths from her encounter with Loki’s magic. Agent Barton is bloodlessly pale as Hogun and Fandral carry him from the field of battle, his gambit barely scarring his opponent. Sif is determined to find death and glory in battle. And still the Destroyer marches on.

Without his powers and without Mjölnir he can think of no better way to stop it. Loki’s grievance is with him alone. His brother will see reason if it is presented to him. He only wishes that he could thank Jane, and apologize to her for her efforts. He waits only long enough for Erik Selvig to lead Jane away by the shoulders before facing the Destroyer.

It lumbers easily through a street filled with destruction, kicking flaming debris out of its way. Acrid-smelling black smoke curls in its wake, making the sunny day far darker. He can feel blistering waves of heat emanating from the Destroyer’s body.

“Brother,” Thor says, and hopes that Loki will listen. He is only beginning to realize how little he knows of his brother’s mind. “Whatever I have done to wrong you, whatever I have done to lead you to do this, I am truly sorry.”

He has spent so long thinking only of himself. His crown, his glory, his pain. Perhaps if he had spent more time listening to others he might have been able to fix whatever had gone wrong with Loki before it got to this point. Instead it’s just another unanswered regret.

“But these people are innocent. Taking their lives will gain you nothing.”

The Destroyer’s face plate opens, revealing the heart of flame inside. Heat ripples across his skin as Thor looks up into that inhuman face. He does not flinch away.

“So take my life,” he offers, the last think he has to give, “and end this.”

There is no gout of flame to burn him to ash. Instead the Destroyer’s face plate closes, and Thor’s breath catches. _Perhaps,_ he dares to think. Perhaps Loki has given up and no one need die here today, and he will have a chance to fix things. The Destroyer turns away.

The back of its hand slams into his chest with a sickening crunch that sends him flying. Thor hits the paved ground and rolls. “No!” someone yells, but he can’t look to see who, he can’t even breathe. He feels shattered somewhere important, ground to bits inside. He can feel the Destroyer’s footsteps through the ground as it lumbers away.

Jane fills his vision, leaning over him with tears in her eyes. Beautiful and brave Jane Foster. She and her world are safe.

“It’s over,” he tells her, with the last breath that remains to him.

Jane shakes her head, emphatic. “No, it’s not over,” she says, and she places her notebook on his chest. “There are healing spells, I can—“

_Of course she would fight against what can’t be fought,_ he thinks. It is one of the things that has drawn him to her from the beginning. “You’re safe,” Thor says, and places his hand over hers to stop her. What strength remains to him is draining fast “It’s over.”

His eyes flicker closed, because he no longer has strength to keep them open. He can hear Jane’s sobs from somewhere far away. _What’s loved, lives,_ he thinks of the old saying, as something bright and powerful closes in around him.

_So,_ says a voice from somewhere outside himself, as clear and ancient as chiming bells, _how about it?_

\--

Jane can’t find a heartbeat or even a breath from Thor. He’s so still on the ground, bloodied and bruised from the Destroyer’s final blow. She flips frantically through manual pages and wishes she knew more of healing spells. She’s never been good with organic beings and now it’s going to cost her someone dear.

She can’t breathe. Breathing is already painful from the aftermath of being briefly in vacuum, and her chest aches with heartbreak. She can’t find the right spell through her tears.

There’s a rumble of thunder in the far off distance. Dark clouds move in quickly from the edge of the horizon—almost too quickly for a storm, even out here where inclement weather whips up fast. Jane ignores them, still desperately paging through her manual. Most healing spells require blood, she knows, preferably the blood of the caster. She looks about for broken glass to draw enough blood.

“Jane!”

Erik’s yell makes her look up. What she thought was thunder was instead the sound of an object breaking the sound barrier and arcing towards them. Jane stares, open-mouthed, numbers running in her head. Fifty miles at 770mph and accelerating if d=vt+1/2at2 is—fast, very fast, and headed straight for her.

Erik hauls her up by the shirt. Jane fights, trying to drag Thor with her.  She’s not sure what she’s trying to do even, maybe shield his body from the imminent impact. Erik manages to drag her back to the sidewalk before Mjölnir rockets out of the sky.

Thor’s hand reaches up and takes the hammer by the hilt, and a lightning bolt crashes down out of the sky.

He is too bright to look at, limned by lightning that does not disappear in a flash but instead continues to streak out of the overcast sky. There’s heat and the sudden smell of ozone. The air booms again and again with the displacement of superheated air, and suddenly Jane can see why Thor’s people might have been worshipped as gods. Anything that beautiful and bright and righteous had to be terrifying.

The Destroyer turns, face plate clanking open, but Mjölnir appears out of the column of lightning to knock its blast aside. When the hammer swings back around it knocks the metal giant off its feet before returning perfectly to the hand of its wielder.

The lightning-wreathed deity in front of Jane whirls his hammer and the wind picks up, a sudden funnel touching grasping downwards at the debris scattered all over Main St. Jane and Erik back up, dodging flying chunks of metal and glass as they move out of range of the whipping wind.

The Destroyer is caught in the middle of the storm. It shoots another gout of fire skywards, but this is as easily deflected as the first. Jane can see cars caught up by the wind, flung into the air as easily as the remains of Main St. She breathes power into her shield spell, covering both her and Erik. The Destroyer holds out for a few seconds longer against the power of the wind, but eventually its feet lose traction on the ground and it rises.

The funnel is thick and dark enough that it’s impossible to see either Thor or the Destroyer, only the flashes of lightning and fire. Everything is howling wind and crashing thunder, a cacophony of moving air. Jane squints, trying to see something through the gloom.

High overhead there is an explosion. The shockwave makes Jane stagger into Erik, nearly knocking the both of them over. The remnants of the Destroyer crash back down to earth, along with cars and other shrapnel. The wind dies down as quick as it came. The clouds overhead start to disperse.

Thor strides out of the carnage. His injuries are gone, disappeared as if they never happened, and he is wearing a suit of armor accented by a crimson cape. He looks—right somehow, in a way he hasn’t since he came here. No longer too perfect to look at, he is smiling at her.

Jane rushes forward, throws her hands around his waist. He is reassuringly solid. She looks up into his blue eyes, and she could swear she sees lightning behind them. Thor smiles down at her.

“You look good,” Jane breathes, and before he can respond she leans up and presses her lips to his.

When beings who are fluent in the Speech kiss, the connection often goes deeper than the merely physical. Minds and thoughts come together as easily as bodies. It’s a consideration many wizards have to take into account when entering into physical relationships with one another, because trust and honesty are so crucial to their work.

Jane’s thoughts mingle with Thor’s easily, and she shares readily her relief at his survival. He is relieved too, and something else—triumphant with victory. And crackling under the surface, a force that tastes like lightning. Bright and powerful and swift and terrifying and—beyond time, beyond physical form, and far beyond mortality.

Jane pulls back, shocked by realization. She puts a hand to her lips, for they are tingling and numb.

“Did you say,” she asks, still not sure how to breathe from that electrifying kiss, “that you _were_ Thor, or that you _would be_ Thor?”

He smiles, and it is Thor but it is also something _beyond_ him. “Causality,” says the Winged Defender, “is so complicated, don’t you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how many times do you think the Winged Defender has been found out through makeouts?
> 
> Also, I'm going to be taking a brief hiatus from this story, as I need to focus on my holiday exchange, but once that's done I'll be picking this right back up again!


	12. Abeyance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished my Christmas exchange, so have a holiday update just for all you lovely people!

Conventional thought around the known universe was that lying in the Speech that underlies the universe was either impossible or so dangerous as to be wholly unadvisable, but Loki has never shrunk from the challenge. The trick, as in a lot of lying, is to say _just enough_ truth by which certain and inevitable but false conclusions can be drawn.

It’s how he ended up here, back on this iceball of a planet, face to face with the king of the Jötuns.

_My father,_ Loki thinks, revulsion creeping up in him at the truth lying hidden beneath his skin. No—Laufey is not his father, he is a son of Asgard, and he will _show_ them that by destroying their greatest enemy. Odin—his _true_ father—would disapprove of an unprovoked attack, but Loki’s strike will not come unprovoked.

“Are your warriors ready?” Loki asks, looking over the assembled red-eyed giants. Here, on their dim lost planet, they truly look the monsters they are supposed to be. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

Thor has defeated the Destroyer. He has a wizard on his side. Sif and the Warriors Three have abandoned him for Thor. It is only a matter of time.

Things to be dealt with later, he thinks, trying to ignore the fear spinning in his head that all his plans are spinning too far out of control. _What else is there to do, but move forward?_ That voice that sounds so much like his own asks, and the words ripple with truth in his heart. There is no going back.

“So long as you keep up your end of the bargain, Asgardian,” Laufey sneers.

“I promise you, at the end of this, the Casket will be returned to its rightful owners,” Loki says.

He calls down the Bïfrost.

\--

Puente Antiguo is a warzone. Debris and cars are scattered all the way across what used to be Main St in a placid and inconsequential New Mexican town. He’s going to have a hell of a time explaining to Fury how his little code 084 turned into a grudge match between alien space royalty and a giant fire-shooting metal man, a large and very visible explosion over a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and said object of unknown origin departing his secure compound of its own volition at Mach 1, all in the space of one day.

Maybe they can just pin it on some other bit of Hammer Industries tech gone wrong. That giant metal monster certainly _looked_ a lot like knockoff Stark equipment.

The black sedan peels into the center of the carnage, and Coulson gets out of the car. He’s wary, but not alarmed. Whatever went down here, it’s clear that it’s already over.

Dr. Foster is kneeling over Agent Barton, who is lying on the ground looking pained. Thor and a group of newcomers Coulson can only assume by their fancy armor are his friends watch her, patiently quiet. As Coulson approaches, Dr. Foster leans back and wipes her brow.

“That’s all I can manage,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Agent Barton replies, “that’s—good. It feels better.” He looks around and spots Coulson fast approaching. “Agent Coulson. Nice to see you made it Sir.”

“Barton,” Coulson inclines his head to his fallen agent. “Report.”

“Broke my leg. We beat the big metal man. Thor may or may not have actually turned into a god, or an archangel, or something, I’m not really sure,” Barton says, frowning. Coulson looks to Thor. The tall blond looks surprisingly at home in bulky armor and a red cape, carrying his magical hammer.

“Called the Winged Defender,” Dr. Foster says quickly. “Senior Power That Is. Cosmic being unconstrained by time or physicality, instrumental in creating the universe. I’ll send you an update later.”

“Not a god, although by your species’ approximation, close enough,” Thor explains. “And I contain only a small aspect of one.”

“Fortunately for theology as a whole,” Coulson says. “Glad to see you got the hammer back.”

“Thank you,” Thor replies.

“Yeah, maybe leave this one out of the official report,” Dr. Foster’s assistant butts in. “It’ll just confuse people.”

“Speaking of the official report,” Coulson says, “I’d like to take a moment to debrief all of you—“

“No time,” Dr. Foster says. “We need to get to Asgard.”

“Jane,” Thor says, “there is no need. My brother’s quarrel is with me alone, and I am sorry your people got caught up in it, but it is not your fight.”

“And I’m still a Wizard on Errantry,” Jane says, her face set with determination. “You need to talk to your brother, I get it. But I’m seeing this through, so don’t even think about leaving me behind.”

Thor smiles at her, eyes soft. “Of course,” he says. He looks back at Coulson. “From this day forth, Son of Coul, know that you and the earth you protect may count me as your ally. But for now, I have unfinished business with my brother.”

Without another word he drew Dr. Foster close by the waist and shot into the air. Coulson cranes his neck, watching until they disappear, then fishes his cell out of his pocket and presses a button on his speed dial. SHIELD HQ picks up almost immediately.

“This is Coulson,” he says. “Get me Director Fury. He’s going to want to hear this himself...”

\--

Jane’s exhilarating ride to the Bïfrost site takes only a few moments, but it still leaves her breathless and giddy. She’s done a lot of crazy things in the name of wizardry and science, but she’s never truly flown before, not at these speeds and not tucked carefully into a pleasantly strong pair of arms belonging to the alien demigod she’s just shared an amazing kiss with.

It does not take long for the others to arrive, as her van comes trundling along, driven by Darcy. Thor makes his way to the center of the imprint of the spell circle the gating left on the ground and calls for Heimdall.

Nothing happens. Thor calls again, looking gravely puzzled. “He doesn’t answer,” he says.

“Then we are stranded,” Hogun says.

Jane peers at the circle left in the dust. She doesn’t have nearly the type of personal energy rating to power that level of spell.

“We might have to go through the Crossings,” she says, naming the Inercontinual Worldgating Facility located on Rirhath B and the closest hub of intergalactic transit. It’s not an ideal solution. It’ll take a few hours which may be longer than they can afford.

“Heimdall!” Thor calls to the sky. “If you can hear me, we need you now!”

Jane feels that familiar prickle of superstring activity in the air and looks up. The clouds are warping into a funnel that is fast approaching the ground her. All around she can see looks of relief in Thor’s friends as they ready themselves for the Bïfrost.

“Are you ready?” Thor asks Jane, drawing her deliciously close.

Jane nods. She finds Darcy, who is leaning against the van, watching all of this with amusement. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she says. “Don’t blow up the lab while I’m away.”

“Alright, blow up the lab, got it boss,” Darcy says. Jane sticks her tongue out at her intern before turning back to Thor.

“Let’s go.”

They step into the Bïfrost.


	13. Tipping Point

The Bïfrost is like a lot of long-range transports Jane has done, only more intense. It yanks her up by her navel so quickly it confuses her sense of equilibrium. She has to close her eyes against nausea, which only makes it worse. Streaks of impossibly fast light flash behind her eyelids in a disorienting array of colors— _cosmic rays_ , Jane thinks, because it gives her something to think about other than her rebelling stomach. She reaches out and holds Thor’s hand. It is reassuringly solid.

She stumbles out into a large circular room lit by the force powering the Bïfrost, a tree of lightning-like branches that arc from a central trunk, a large sword placed in a pedestal. Next to the pedestal a powerfully built, black Asgardian lays prone.

Red-haired Volstagg rushes forward to pull the sword from the pedestal, which halts the building energy in the room. It’s reassuringly sensible. Jane’s seen the kind of damage an unconstrained worldgate can do to a planet, and a worldgate of this size and energy seems like it could get unconstrained fast.

“Get him to the healing rooms,” Thor gestures to the prone figure. “Jane, stay with Lady Sif. Leave my brother to me.”

Jane watches as he stalks out the open doorway, full of righteous fury that makes her hair stand up on her arms, and then turns to help with the unconscious Asgardian. Sif and the others have him rolled over. He’s barely conscious, gold eyes roving wildly around the room.

“So,” Jane says, looking down at the man. “This is Heimdall then?”

“This is he,” Sif answers, and she drags the man’s arm over her shoulder.

\--

There is fighting in the palace. Ice limns the walls leading to the walls of his father’s bedchamber. As he flies, Thor catches glimpses of Frost Giants fighting with Einherjar, but he does not stop. Whatever is going on here, Loki is waist deep in it.

Thor lets his fury burn hot in him. It is reflected by the fury of that other voice inside him, the one Jane calls the Winged Defender. Fury and grief and ancient love for a sibling once lost forever to darkness. But Loki is not lost to It. Not yet.

His brother sits poised on the edge of a knife.

Thor bursts through the door to their father’s chambers. Loki has set the scene of his victory, a hard-won battle over Odin’s sleeping form, their mother teary-eyed and grateful for his timely intervention. Fury rears up in Thor. How many did Loki hurt, to cast himself as the hero?

“Loki,” he growls.

His mother rushes to him, embraces him, but there is too much anger in him to truly enjoy the reunion. Across the room Loki looks stricken by Thor’s reappearance. Whatever Loki’s plans here, Thor was clearly never meant to interfere. Loki circles warily, wide eyes never leaving his brother as he backs away.

Well, he no longer has any patience with Loki’s scheme.

“Why don’t you tell them,” Thor asks, rounding on Loki, “how you sent the Destroyer to kill our friends, to kill me?”

In Loki’s eyes he can see panic, but it gives him no satisfaction, even when his mother breaths a soft, “What?”

“Well I must have been enforcing father’s last command,” Loki says, but even in the Allspeech it rings hollow.

Thor shakes his head. “You’re a talented liar, brother,” he says, and he can feel the words coming from that _other_ force that thrums inside his chest, echoing ancient grudges and ancient battles. “Always have been.”

“It’s good to have you back,” Loki says, insincere. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to destroy Jötunheim.”

Loki’s face twists into a mask of hate as he levels Gungnir at Thor and fires. The bolt of fire catches Thor solidly across the chest, and he tumbles back, crashing wildly through the wall and falling through the air towards the ground far below.

\--

With four impossibly tall Asgardians to carry Heimdall to the healing rooms, Jane is left with little to do. She trails behind, largely ignored by the bustling healers and feeling useless and out of place, drawing a few looks as she passes but otherwise little notice.

Asgard is a marvel. The golden spires of the palace dominate the skyline, looking to Jane’s eyes like the universe’s largest pipe organ. Everywhere things are built both for beauty and utility both, with seamlessness that astonishes Jane. She wonders about everything: how they filter their water, how the frictionless gravity-defying platforms that take them to the healing rooms are powered, what kind of metal everything is made of.

On any other day she would be asking a million questions, but she can’t shake the feeling of unease.

She’s not the only one feeling it. Thor’s friends are all silent as they carry Heimdall. There is a hush through the streets that even Jane—who has been here only a few moments—knows isn’t normal. They deliver Heimdall to the healers, a small group of efficient and competent women who immediately whisk their patient away.

Jane sits back on an empty bed and cools her heels, waiting.

“I never thought to see him like this,” Sif says. The taller woman takes a seat beside Jane, her eyes on the healers. She looks worried.

Jane, not at all sure that comfort will be welcome, sets her hand on Sif’s arm. Sif’s arm jumps at Jane’s touch, and she pulls back her hand into her lap, self-conscious.

Sif smiles at her. “I apologize,” she says. “I am only worried. Before he was gatekeeper, he was my brother.”

Jane has to stop herself from saying something stupid, like a comment on their disparate appearances. Even by earth standards of genetics it’s not the _most_ unlikely think she could have run into, and she’s nowhere near earth.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she says instead.

On the bed across the hall, Heimdall thrashes. Sif jumps to her feet, crossing to see what is happening, and Jane follows after her. Heimdall’s eyes open, wild and seeing something too far off. He grips Sif’s arm by the arm, so hard that his fingers press into her skin.

“The Bïfrost,” he says. “It’s active. It’s… too much…”

Heimdall’s hand falls limp, his eyes shutter closed. Jane’s blood goes icy, and when she looks at Sif, she can tell the other woman is thinking the same thing.

“Loki,” Sif breathes. “He wouldn’t dare—“

“I think he dared,” Jane says, and she knows what she has to do. A high-powered worldgate in the hands of Thor’s treacherous younger brother, Asgard’s gatekeeper out of commission, and Jane the only gating expert left on Asgard. She takes a deep breath, looks at Sif. “Can you get me to the Bïfrost?”

Sif nods. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane & Sif team-up, yeah!


	14. Intervention

They leave as fast as they can. Sif leads the way with purposeful and long strides that have Jane jogging to keep up. The warrior’s mouth is set with a grim sort of purpose that has Jane feeling sorry for Loki when they catch up to him. The gold-and-marble colonnades of the palace give way to a stable with _actual horses._

For a moment, Jane just stares.

_Space horses. Powers in a bucket!_

“Can you ride?” Sif asks, leading a gray horse so tall Jane has to crane her neck to get a look at the top of its head.

“Uhh…” Jane says, caught somewhere between the advent of space horses and figuring out how to explain to a Viking warrior maybe-goddess that her equestrian experience consists of six months of riding lessons when she was twelve. “No.”

Sif takes that in stride and extends a hand. She hauls Jane up onto the back of the horse, and before Jane can even get herself settled they’re off. It’s not what Jane would call a comfortable ride. She clings to Sif’s waist and closes her eyes as they careen with breakneck speed through the streets of Asgard. Fortunately, people get out of their way as they ride.

Abruptly, Sif stops the horse. Jane dares to open her eyes for a peek. From here she can see the bridge to the Bïfrost, fluorescing in every color of the visible spectrum and probably a few she can’t see. It casts an eerie glow over everything.

Six blue-skinned humanoids several heads taller than Sif are standing at the gate to the Bïfrost, carrying wicked looking knives that look carved out of ice. Their red eyes bore into Jane and Sif as the women dismount from the horse (Sif easily, Jane clumsily), and the hate coming from them is physical. She shudders.

She knows enough from the manual to recognize them at Jötuns. They are the Lone Power’s creatures entirely, an entire species twisted to that One’s will. And they’re standing between Jane and where she needs to go.

Sif swings her sword, circling dangerously, ready for battle.

There are words that wizards use when they are forced to fight another sentient creature. Protocols that most wizards hope to never use, because they mean things are about to get ugly.

“In Life’s name,” Jane says in the Speech, “and for Its sake, I advise you that I am here on the business of the Powers That Be! Your actions toward my companion and I, and through us, toward Them, will determine the continuation of your present status.” It’s difficult trying to intimidate when your opponent towers at least three feet above your head, but Jane gives it her best shot anyways. “ _Be warned by me, and desist!”_

All eyes are suddenly on her, but Jane refuses to be intimidated by that dark gaze.

“You serve those Powers?” one of the Jötuns asks, in a mangled version of the Speech that makes Jane feel like she’s just bit down on a block of ice. “Then you are our enemy as much as Asgard.”

He raises his knife and charges. _Wrong move buddy,_ Jane thinks, and braces herself. She’s still got seven of eight words on her tongue from her spell against the Destroyer. Staring down those red eyes, she speaks the eighth and final word.

The Jötun explodes, leaving no trace but a few ionized particles in the air. The blast is powerful enough to stagger Jane and a few of the other Jötuns. Sif is quick to take advantage, and in one fluid motion spears one and decapitates another.

Jane says the eighth word again, a sort of wizardly trigger, and another target explodes into his component atoms. Each shot sends her staggering with the power required, but she’d rather be safe than sorry.  

Sif dispatches the last two, her sword a glint of silvery death. In the end the Jötuns barely stand a chance. Jane has to put her hands on her knees and breathe hard.

Sif puts a hand on her shoulder and catches Jane’s eye. “Very useful,” she says. “What was that?”

“I destabilized the electrical bonds between their atoms,” Jane says, feeling giddy and disgusted at the same time. She straightens up, fighting down her nausea. “Let’s go.”

\--

Loki has gone mad, Thor thinks. He means to use the Bïfrost to destroy Jötunheim, to destroy a race of sentient creatures. All to prove to Odin something that, to Thor’s eyes, needs no proving. He fights like he means for Thor to kill him.

And he’s threatened Jane.

 _You know what is in him,_ that second voice inside his head says, as Thor swings his hammer around to catch Loki across the chest. The glow of the Bïfrost is cold and terrible, making shadows in Loki’s face that never were there before. Or maybe it’s only the darkness that he’s let inside of him. _You know who our enemy is._

_But he is my brother!_

He is unwilling to draw the inevitable conclusion: that his brother is lost, that perhaps they were always headed down this terrible road. They trade blows, echoes of a long ago battle in a far distant part of the universe. Loki raises Gungnir to fire and Thor charges him.

They break through the wall of Heimdall’s observatory and tumble across the Bïfrost bridge. He smacks into its glassy edge and rolls uncontrollably, and finally uses Mjölnir to stop his fall. Loki has gone tumbling off the edge, clinging just by his fingertips.

“Thor!” he calls out, desperate and pleading. His brother’s green eyes are wide and desperate and that alone, he knows, is a trick. It doesn’t matter. He still has to try to reach Loki, even if it’s futile. Still has to try to save him.

Loki’s hand disappears even as Thor stretches out his arm to lift him up. Nothing but an illusion.

A sharp and cruel laugh echoes over the sound of the Bïfrost. Loki’s spear sends him sprawling, white hot flame scoring Thor’s armor where it touches. He looks up and there are a thousand mirrors of Loki, all laughing, all taller than his brother and darker too, drawn up by some inner power.

Or perhaps inner Power.

Loki at last, triumphant, laughing, and alone.

“Fairest and fallen!” someone shouts, and Thor turns to see Jane there with Sif, her small body filled with fury, her brown eyes glowing in the light from the Bïfrost. She’s got her hands balled into fists and is staring straight at Loki. “Greetings and defiance!”


	15. Bridge

The bridge is fluorescing, rainbows of color wildly cycling to flashes of bright white light.

Loki is on the bridge fighting with his brother, spear raised over Thor’s prone form, a thousand refracted illusions of his laughing face. He looks different from the slick, urbane man she met on the roof of her lab in Puente Antiguo, twisted with rage and pain that she’s seen before, in other faces on other worlds.

“Fairest and Fallen!” Jane calls, the ancient words used by countless wizards when they confront the Lone Power, the echo of the words said when It was first cast out by the other Powers, both epithet and courtesy. “Greetings and defiance!”

Loki turns, and his illusions turn with him, a thousand sneering faces looking at her with disdain. Jane’s not sure which is the real one, isn’t even sure it matters. She picks the closest and stares him down.

“Ah,” that chorus of voices says, bored and dismissive, but underneath that she can feel his fear, “The mortal. What can you hope to do here, in this land of gods so far beyond your insignificant life?”

_If I’m so insignificant, why are you scared?_ Jane wonders. “Oh I think I’m significant enough to stop you,” she spits back at that carefully bored face. “Care to explain what you think you’re doing here?”

The bridge flashes with another burst of white light. Just beyond Loki and Thor, the observatory is almost consumed by the power of the Bïfrost. It glows, that tangle of bright power casting an eerie light over the proceedings. On the other end, the tidal forces alone must be building to a power that could rip a star apart. Jane starts gathering what power she has available to her.

The Lone Power-as-Loki spreads his hands expansively at the golden city rising behind them.

“Look at this place,” he says. “Asgard the Eternal. It’s about as close to Timeheart as you can get in this universe. If we’re even still in the same universe as your earth—I’ve never understood that myself. If there’s any place I have good and truly lost, it’s here.”

“So give up and crawl back where you came from, serpent,” Sif growls.

The Lone Power laughs, and Sif steps back – the brave warrior, faltering at the sound. “Oh, Sif,” he says, “Strong, beautiful, faithful Sif. There are all kinds of victories. How many battles have you fought? How much of my work have you seen done?”

Sif bares her teeth. “Halt your poisoned tongue,” she hisses.

“You’re much too late to stop it, I’m afraid,” Loki says, and the Bïfrost shines bright white and something in it cracks like a dam unable to hold back water. Jane, standing on the bridge, feels power hit her like a lightning bolt, and in that second she gets an impression of something vast and ancient and _alive_ , screaming in sorrow at what will happen on the planet below.

Thor and Sif can feel it too. Jane feels their fear through the connection in the Bïfrost. Thor struggles to his feet – unseen or ignored by the gloating Loki. Jane catches his eye, hopes he can hear what she’s thinking. Sif raises her steel, eyes on the observatory.

If they don’t stop this soon, it will be too late.

“So Loki is your play,” Jane says, the pieces beginning to fall into place: lost Jötunheim, Asgard’s choice, and the final doom waiting for them. Ragnarök. “Get him on your side and Asgard falls?”

Loki tilts his head, seeming impressed. “Clever, for a mortal,” he says, glancing at Thor. There’s a twisted approval there. “It’s the old story, of course. Two brothers, forever striving for their father’s affection, one always second best. Until, of course, he brings death to the worlds. You’re a wizard. I don’t need to tell you how powerful stories get in the retelling.”

“And murdering an entire sentient species is just, what, a bonus?” Jane spits back. The Jötuns might belong to the Lone Power, but it seems he’s not above discarding his own toys when he’s done with them.

“That was Loki’s own flourish,” the Lone Power admits, “Though it is rather inspired. Very dramatic.”

She can feel the Bïfrost beneath her, that unconstrained power tempered only by that despairing mind at its heart, trying to drag back the tide. Yggdrasil, Jane realizes. It’s alive.

She has to make her move soon, or it will be too late.

“It’s a good plan,” Jane admits, her grin rueful. “But I think you forgot one thing.”

Loki’s head tilts, brows quizzically drawn together. “Enlighten me, mortal.”

“You’ve already been redeemed,” Jane says. “Don’t you remember? A little planet on the edge of the universe, and you gave all this up—“

“Oh, please. That’s your trump card?” the Lone Power says, dismissive and arrogant. “Cosmically, sure, it was a blow, but I can still watch Asgard burn.”

“You forgot,” Jane screams over the sound of the Bïfrost, over the pull of Yggdrasil in her bones, “that if you can be redeemed, then so can he!”

Thor moves, tackles Loki. He’s caught off guard by the powerful blow, and tumbles nearly to the edge of the Bïfrost. Sif rushes towards the brawling brothers, sword raised. Jane ignores them all, in her mad dash for the observatory. With every step she can feel its growing power, pulsing through her, using her as a conduit.

Jane starts in on the Speech. She can’t hear her own voice but she can feel the effect of each word as it is ripped from her tongue by the power of the open gate. She’s yelling, screaming, shouting at the Bïfrost, with the same vehemence with which she excoriated SHIELD, the Speech half-lecture and half-order on her tongue. _You don’t want to do this! Turn around, turn away, stop stop stop!_

It’s not enough compared to that tide of power, but her voice isn’t alone.

Jane opens herself to Yggdrasil, recklessly plunges into that ancient and powerful mind. They slam together with all the force of an atom bomb. Yggdrasil overwhelms her, tiny mortal that she is, like she’s a rickety house in a tornado just trying to keep from being pulled apart. Jane screams, not sure if it’s her or Yggdrasil that is screaming.

“Help her!” Jane hears someone say, from another world entirely. “I’ve got Loki.”

Jane ignores it. She drags back against the full power of the Bïfrost, feels it give fractionally. Not enough. On the other end she can feel the other world, cracking under the pressure, dying just slowly enough to give its people no time to escape. Jane strains, throws more of her power at it. It’s like throwing a bucket of water on a wildfire.

Thor takes her hand. Jane feels his mind mingle with hers, bright and powerful, and the Winged Defender just beneath the surface, straining to be let loose.

_Use my power,_ Thor offers her. _Show us what to do._

Jane takes the offered power eagerly. It’s like tapping into the sun. She’s no longer torn between fighting Yggdrasil and fighting the Bïfrost. She’s strong enough to swim with the current. With Thor’s power at her disposal she can see to Yggdrasil’s depths.

_It is a tree!_ Jane thinks, astonished at the resemblance in a semi-sentient network of wormholes. She can feel Thor’s answering smile.  

She shows him how to drag at the Bïfrost, using all her knowledge of worldgates not as the scalpel they were meant to be, but as a hammer. Lessening gravity, shifting warped space, severing superstrings, breaking the open connection between two unconnected parts of space. They pull the Bïfrost away from Jötunheim, inch by Herculean inch.  

The connection shifts, then breaks. Jane has to fight even harder, to keep the Bïfrost from spraying radiation across the universe like an out of control fire hose. It fights her grip. Jane has to clamp down, lecturing again. Beside her Thor bellows his disappointment in the unruly bridge, like it’s a misbehaving child.

Jane’s not sure when the power of the Bïfrost begins to diminish. It’s so gradual she’s not sure what she’s feeling at first, and her control almost slips. Thor squeezes her hand. Jane starts in on the Bïfrost again, and doesn’t let up, even when the light around the observatory starts to dim and then die.

There’s a pounding in her head, an ache in her bones. She’s still connected to Yggdrasil, and the tree drags at her as it curls back to dormancy. Jane grits her teeth, focuses in on the Bïfrost, making sure to shut it off properly. It’s barely got a trickle of power left, and all of the superstrings have straightened out.

Jane closes it with a word like a slammed door.

She sags, drained. Thor turns to her, blue eyes concerned. Jane shakes her head at him. “Go,” she says. “The sword.”

Thor rushes in to the observatory to pull the sword from its pedestal. Jane hits the glassy surface of the bridge hard, probably bruising her tailbone. She fights with nausea, curls her legs up and rests her head on her knees.

_Just for a second,_ Jane thinks, her last thought before she loses consciousness completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that Games Wizards Play is released, I guess it's time for a chapter! Next one should finish us up!
> 
> A bit of Loki's speech here is cribbed from "Thor: Season One", because, well, it fit.


	16. Yggdrasil

Jane is nestled in the branches of a great tree made of light so blindingly brilliant, for a moment she thinks she’s in Timeheart. The light has that same quality, of becoming both brighter and clearer the longer she looks into it. A soft wind shakes ancient leaves made of starlight, greeting her. Jane sets her hand on the tree’s bark. The light shining from the tree blurs the sight of her hand where it touches the crystalline bark, so that Jane cannot mark the delineation between them.

“You’re Yggdrasil?” she asks, knowing the answer already.

_Yes,_ Yggdrasil answers in her mind. _And you are Jane Foster. Thank you._

“I was just doing what needed to be done,” Jane says, self-conscious. “No need to thank me.”

_You saved me and my children also._ Jane is left with the impression of worlds light years apart, connected by a sentient nexus of wormholes, each world and each child of those worlds her children. The weight of the love required, to love so many. _You merged your thought with mine and in so doing saved us all._

An impression of Thor and Asgard, standing strong. The Jotuns, left in the ancient dark. Humankind, blind and struggling creatures reaching for the stars. Loki, who brought this all about, but in the end is still a child of Yggdrasil. Jane herself, human and fragile, standing unflinching in the maelstrom of the Bïfrost.

_Go well, Jane Foster_ , Yggdrasil says.

Jane begins to climb upwards, branch by shining branch, the wind on her cheeks and the light in her eyes growing stronger.

\--

Thor runs to Jane Foster’s side when he learns that she is awake. She has been asleep for many of the past days, while Asgard has recovered from the attack and come to terms with Loki’s betrayal. Thor has split his time between his family and the healing rooms where Jane is.

He has not questioned how she has come to be so precious to him. She gave him shelter, opened her heart to him, and at the last saved his home and his brother. It seems only natural that he should love her.

Jane is sitting up, curious and attentive to everything happening in the healing rooms, while Eir examines her. She spots Thor hovering in the doorway and smiles, flashing her teeth, joy lining her dimples.

“Excuse me, Eir,” Thor says, “but might I have a moment alone with Jane?”

As prince he could order the healers to leave the room, but he is no longer the man who would. He would rather ask.

“Of course,” Eir says, and waves the other healers away. She gives one last look at Jane. “I would refrain from any strenuous use of power for at least a fortnight.”

Once they are alone, Thor takes Jane’s hand in his. It is small and soft, but he knows the power in those hands.

“Did you know they use quantum field generators as a diagnostic tool?” Jane asks, delight shining in her brown eyes. Thor smiles to see it. “I mean—you probably knew, you live here—“

“Jane,” Thor interrupts, before she can trip all over her own enthusiasm. “Are you alright?”

Jane squeezes his hand reassuringly. “Eir says I am. She said I’m mostly suffering from spell burnout, from all the power moving through me, which is why I went unconscious.” She does not seem concerned, and Thor knows that prince or not Eir would not have left a patient alone if she were in serious danger. “How is everything here?”

“Asgard is—adjusting,” Thor says. “It will take some time.”

Jane’s expression darkens. “And Loki?” she asks.

“Confined to his room for the time being. And none too happy about it.”

Jane’s frown is swift and unexpected, but she says only, “He’s got a long journey ahead of him.”

“He is my brother,” Thor says. “Returning Loki to the light is the responsibility of our family. We will help him.”

“Good,” Jane says. “Because I’ve got a feeling—That Power isn’t anywhere near done with Asgard.”

Thor shudders. He does not know if Jane has a gift for prophecy, but he feels the tide of Fate in her words. The fight for Asgard and the fight for his brother’s soul are not over. Thor’s fingers find the spaces between Jane’s and hold fast.

“For now,” Thor declares, “we should not worry on that. We have won the day, Jane Foster, and I think that calls for celebration.”

Jane, who is sitting up only with the aid of many plush pillows, looks around. “I’m not sure how much celebration I’m going to be able to—oh!”

Thor’s lips claim Jane’s mouth swiftly, swallowing her surprise. He lets her warm thoughts melt into his, her pleasure in the kiss echoed back by his own. Jane’s slight fingers run over his neck and through his hair, drawing him closer.

_Whatever happens next, I should like to visit you, Jane Foster._

Her agreement is instantaneous and enthusiastic.

\--

Thor has left, and Jane is just about to drift off back to sleep when the sense of someone watching her makes her look. She blinks, then jerks suddenly awake. Dressed in golden armor and no longer slumped with pain, Heimdall is an impressive figure.

“Easy, Jane Foster,” he says, his voice a deep rumble that she feels in her bones.

“Sorry,” she says, sheepish. “You startled me.” She straightens her bedsheets, suddenly glad that the Asgardian hospital gown is more _gown_ than not. “How are you—umm—you look better since the last time I saw you.”

Heimdall smiles, his golden eyes twinkling. “I wanted to thank you. It was your intervention that saved the Bïfrost.”

Jane flushes, self-conscious. Thor seems to think that she saved his world, and he’s apparently not alone in that opinion. “Well, I couldn’t just let another world die,” she says.

“If you would like, I could instruct you,” Heimdall says. “Since you merged your thought with Yggdrasil, there are many things you could learn.”

For a moment, Jane has to remember how her mouth works. She swallows the lump in her throat, thinking furiously. She’s only just begun to scratch the surface of her knowledge of Yggdrasil—the same nexus of wormholes she’s been chasing all along. And now she has an offer of instruction from an expert. Probably _the_ expert.

It’s so tempting that her chest aches to refuse.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But I need to go home. I need to rescue my intern from SHIELD, and probably my lab from my intern, and I need to let Erik know I’m alright.”

Heimdall inclines his head. “Of course. Go well, Jane Foster.” Jane hears in his words the echo of Yggdrasil’s, and a tingle goes up her spine. Heimdall pauses in the doorway. “And if you change your mind—the door is open.”

Jane watches him, breathless, as he leaves.

\--

Standing in the Bïfrost observatory again, Jane can feel her sense of Yggdrasil in the back of her mind. The great tree has returned to slumber, but Jane knows that she is always watchful. She pushes that hum of vast consciousness to the back of her mind, and tries to concentrate on Odin speaking.

Her time spent with Thor’s parents has been short—mercifully so, since they are both intimidating in their own way. Saving their world means that the King and Queen of Asgard are obligated to come see her and Thor off.

Thor plans to see her home to New Mexico and to spend a few days before returning to Asgard. This tentative _thing_ between the two of them is new enough that neither wants to be parted. A long distance relationship with an alien god-prince is going to be— _complicated._ At least her manual functions are compatible with Asgard’s communications technology, so they can send messages.

“You have done Asgard a great service, and for that we are thankful to you,” Odin is saying. “If there is anything we can do for you, you have but to ask.”

Jane smiles and—doesn’t quite curtsy, but bends her knees. As a gesture of respect, it’s enough. “On the Powers behalf I thank you,” she says, as tactfully as she can manage, “but all I want now is to go home.”

She thinks that she sees relief in his expression.

Frigga comes forward and embraces Jane. It’s such a motherly embrace that Jane almost forgets that the woman is a queen and a Planetary. Almost.

“I do not think we have seen the last of you,” Frigga says, blue eyes twinkling. She turns to her son and wraps her arms around him. “Do not stay overlong, my son. Asgard has need of you.”

Thor dips his head. “Yes mother.”

“Go well,” Frigga says to the both of them, and Odin repeats her, “Go well.”

Thor slips his fingers into Jane’s and together they enter the Bïfrost observatory. Heimdall is waiting for them, and he catches Jane’s eye.

“If you are ready,” Heimdall says, and he settles his sword in its pedestal. Jane, standing in the midst of the crackling energy of the Bïfrost, can feel Yggdrasil come to life all around her. Thor squeezes her hand and offers an encouraging smile.

Together they step into the Bïfrost.

The funnel deposits them back on earth, in the dusty New Mexico ground just outside of Puente Antiguo. Main Street is no longer strewn with debris, but Jane can see new paint and drywall where broken buildings have been mended. She also can see a lot more men in suits and is not at all surprised when a black car comes trundling their way, its shiny exterior picking up desert dust.

Behind them, the Bïfrost closes back up into the sky. In the back of Jane’s head, that sense of Yggdrasil still remains.

“Well that requires some further study,” she says.

“Hmm?” Thor asks.

“I’ll tell you later,” Jane says, and she hooks her arm in his. Together they walk into town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's finished! Thank you so so much to everyone who read or liked or especially commented on this, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
